Joyfully Weary

One of my favorite days of the year is Christmas Tree day. We prefer a real tree so we head out early in the morning to one of the local farms. For the the last several years we’ve been going to Abbey Farms ; it is by far the best place we’ve found in the Chicagoland area. Jeremy grew up in upstate New York so he has lots of quintessential memories of Christmas tree hunting. He was pretty bummed this year that their was no snow for our hunt - it was in 50’s! The kiddos and I, however, enjoyed the sunny weather. BabyZ is at such a fun age! His little mind is like a sponge. It’s such a joy to watch him observe and try to figure things out. He was so engaged all day - that night he had one of his best sleeps yet!   The older boys wanted to try and cut the tree down themselves, but still needed some assistance from Dad. I adore the picture above of Jer calmly coaching Big Buddy as BabyZ crawls all over him - he is such a patient wonderful dad!...

Christmas trees just scream happiness, there is something just warm and comforting about them. This past Friday we went on our annual Christmas tree hunt. It's become one of our favorite traditions. Jeremy grew-up cutting down a real Christmas tree so in his mind fake is not even an option. There were plenty of years were my family didn't have a tree; so, it took me awhile to understand what the big deal was. But now I'm in full agreement - real trees are the way to go! There is a huge part of me that loves Christmas - the celebration of our Lord Jesus choosing to be our Immanuel! If I'm honest with you though it's not always the easiest time of the year for me. Growing up the holidays were always a chaotic time. Instead of being full of celebration and joy they were tense and sometimes explosive. It's been a struggle to not continue to carry this baggage. I can get overwhelmed with trying to make everything perfect. My desire to give my kids better...

One of our favorite Christmas traditions is going and cutting down our own tree. As long as we aren't out of town, we go to a local farm the day after Thanksgiving.  It's so much fun walking down the rows trying to find the perfect one. This year was even more special because all the kids are starting to join in and point out their own favorites.  After finding our tree we headed to the barn to pick out our yearly ornament.  Little Lady was also able to charm Santa out of more than one candy cane.  Once the tree was up, we put on White Christmas and got to work decorating. Little Lady was memorized by the dancing scenes.  Little Lady got to put the star on this year. It was a little crooked but she was still pretty impressed with herself.  Our finished tree! I love our house at Christmas time...I'll post some pictures of the rest of decorations soon. You can see our previous years...