'Tis the Season . . .

"It won't be snowy," I said, half thinking and mostly doing.  Doing dishes, laundry, cleaning, organizing, dressing, hair, bathrooms, dishes, weeds, raking, dinner--doing it seemed everything that needs doing in a house.  Doing it all about half way. 

The sun shone in the valley.  Bright, warm Thanksgiving sun.  November sun that shines golden and warm and thankful to be shining.  The last hurrah of the sun before the gray takes over.  The sun that enhances the last of the royal statice in the garden and the remaining emerald strands of grass.

"It will be muddy, but not too cold and not snowy."

I was wrong!  Thankfully, we had boots and coats, a few gloves and hats, and a Magaw a bit more wise than me.  We didn't freeze trudging through the two-foot deep snow.  We didn't loose Pops as he cut a path for us all.  We didn't loose Dad as he happily drug out the choosing.  He drug it out so Magaw and I would KNOW we had good trees.   When we set up those trees full of forest life, a bit scraggly and see-through, not designer at all--when we set those trees up we would remember we looked them all over.

Rachael skimmed across the snow on her still-baby sized feet.  Matthew and Emma sunk and giggled and threw snowballs and giggled.  Jared's boots filled with snow and then water, but he held it together.  Hyrum didn't want it to end too soon--he is his mother's son.  Magaw found the trees.  Dad and Hyrum and Pops cut them down.  We threw snowballs.  The sun shone through the mountain forest, dropping golden drops of shining water off the evergreens.  And we drank in that smell.  Ahhh.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Emma, playing with the newly set out nativities.  The Nativities are played with all the time.  Since Hyrum was a toddler, they are a source of never-ending adventures.  One day we won't have any littles to play with the flying wise-men and hold the little babies and break the brittle Josephs.  Every glued together crack and missing ear will be even more special then.  

Christmas story magic.