What decorates your tree?

 We have all seen them; the amazingly decorated theme trees. The kind where you pick the latest colors and buy up everything "that color" by way of ornaments, tinsel, garland, etc. They are a wonder to behold, really. It actually becomes the showcase of Christmas decorating among a home.

Ours isn't that. It never has been. Ours is filled with memories like when one of our twins wanted to be different and decided to like Michigan State rather than Michigan. So he got an ornament to remember that. Or the ornament made in school by my little brother.  A sled where Popsicles and markers were it's medium. Or the precious ornaments Nana gave her grand babies before there were so many that it would take a small fortune to purchase them each year for all of them. Just before we married, we received one which makes us think on such a time. Some make us laugh like the one from our good friends that says, with two snowmen on it "our best friends are flakes." Some just lay in pieces at the bottom of our ornament box hoping that a little elf will secretly glue them so we don't have to.

So this year my husband comments "this tree is a little homeschool." We homeschool. We love homeschooling but our tree feels a bit homemade, a tad too crafty, less refined, slightly kittywampas, absolutely no tinsel. It's perfect. Perfect because, with Selah's "oh Holy Night" playing, we reminisce about the memories behind each ornament. It's our version of oral tradition. It is our way of remembering all we have been through, God's graciousness in our lives over the years. Then, as patriarch of our family, my husband places the star on the top, like a period at the end of a sentence. Completed.

Now that I think about it, our tree IS a theme tree. Our theme isn't the beauty we could purchase but the beauty of us, reflected in our tree. We are less refined, a tad crafty, definitely homemade, very kittywampas, and constantly waiting to be repaired. If we were perfect that would be much less exciting. We could then rely on our own decoration, less on the one who decorates us.

As I write, I gaze at this tree and am thankful. Thankful. 

What decorates your tree this Christmas?