The Christmas Tree 2005

Right after Thanksgiving we wanted to get the Christmas Tree up to get an earlier start than last year and the year before when we just beat Santa by a couple of nights. This year I still needed to go to the shed and pull my tree down from the top shelf, but kept remembering the story of the snake that crawled into a hole in the floor when Chick opened the shed door last summer to put the rake up. From the story he tells I don’t know who was more frightened, the snake or Chick. I somehow imagined by now he must have grow fangs and be 20 foot long. I had not dared to open that door, but now I was going to have to or go buy a new tree.

I came in from work right after the Thanksgiving holidays and there was the little old tree I had stored years ago sitting in the middle of the floor with lights and ornaments all over it. Logan, Micah and Holly had pulled the wrong tree out of the shed, and worst of all they already had it decorated. I stopped and put my purse down and surveyed the scene. The boys were smiling and they were all excited about the wonderful decorating job they were doing. They were just about to finish up and I ruined it by saying, “That is not the tree I wanted up this year, I was looking forward to putting up my prelit tree up - - the pretty one I bought from K-Mart the year before they went out of business.” They all turned and looked at me really disappointed that I wasn’t sharing in this wonderful experience they were having. To me the tree looked drab next to the one I had been putting up for the last 3 or 4 years. They wanted to keep this masterpiece they had put in place, and they weren’t budging. “Oh well, I thought, I’ll let them have their fun and get the other tree out and exchange all the decorations and they’ll never know the difference.”

The following day I went out and pulled the tree from the shed. No snake in sight -- great! Snakes must hybernate in the winter. Two of the pieces of the tree were stored in a plastic storage container, but the bottom piece wouldn’t fit in with the other two when I packed it up last January so I had wrapped the bottom of the tree in a plastic bag. I brought the pieces into the house and the house suddenly smelled like human urine. The mice had gotten into the plastic bag and made themselves a home and used it for a bathroom as well. We were all gagging and knew it couldn’t stay in the house. I threw the whole thing out in the yard and decided this tree was ruined. I told Holly we would throw it in the dump after Christmas.

The next week, we had an ice and rain storm. The tree I had thrown in the yard was soaked and coated with ice. I really figured it was ready for the dump after that because he lights had to be ruined. For sure, now it would go in the dump. I came home from work one day and the tree was gone out of the yard. Mom had brought Holly out to the house for some clothes and she spotted the tree. She didn’t have one, so she took that one home when she learned I was throwing it away. The next time I went over to her house she had this beautiful tree sitting in her living room. The tree was cozy and had blinking lights that played Christmas Carols. She had plugged up some lights with the other lights that played Christmas music, decorated it with some cotton on the boughs and it looked like real snow. She added some old dangly earrings my sister had left there years ago, and toys different grandchildren had brought and left behind. The ice and rain storm had performed a miracle. It had washed and purified the branches and now it looked like a new tree. I can imagine this is how our glorified bodies in heaven will be when we leave this earth. The broken down, old tired, and “ready for the dump” bodies will be like new - - beautiful and glowing from the light of Jesus and the home He went to prepare for us so many years ago. We will shine!

To sum it all up the end of this story is a good one. Our tree at home was decorated by our little boys who had such a wonderful time with their mommy decorating the tree and adding to it every day. They made a green and red chain from construction paper with their mommy, and every evening they would look at their masterpiece and nearly glow. We praised them for the wonderful job they did with this grand tree Santa would see when he visited The Templin home on Christmas Eve.

And, mom was happy with her tree and said it would last her the rest of her life, so goodbye tree you have a new home and Merry Christmas mom. I hope you get to put it up and enjoy it for many Christmases to come. I was joyful we made so many people happy this Christmas. I turned my eyes towards heaven and thanked God for giving us the ice and rain for that very reason because the weather warmed up after that and we never had another cold day.