Headed into the mountains today. I carried the saw and he found a stick. The girls threw snowballs that left tiny diamonds on their dollar thirty-seven cent gloves from Walmart, and we carried home a tree.
Photo by @storyanthology
Before leaving, we had a short talk. “Why are we doing this?” I asked.
“To get a Christmas tree!!!”
”Nope. That’s what we’re doing, but why are we doing it?”
“To celebrate the birth of Jesus!” Eden yelled.
Nope not that either.
photo by @storyanthology
I have a few family and friends who don't celebrate Christmas. No Christmas trees, no Christmas lights, Christmas music, no nothin.
Because Christmas isn't about consumerism.
Because Christmas isn't about stockings or presents or all the other things they don’t want life and family to be about.
And I get it.
Completely.
Which is why we hang garland from the windows, bake Christmas shaped cookies, hang stockings above a fire, and why we drive forty-five minutes on a Saturday morning to hike in the frozen snow in search of the imperfect Christmas tree that we’ll decorate our tree with popcorn, lights, and ornaments.
Because, Christmas trees and Christmas lights and all the other Christmas things we do are simply the things we do, not why we do them.
So we head to the mountains so we can be together, as a family, because “what is today not about?”
“Ourselfes,” Zion says the loudest. And I don’t have the desire to say, "ourselves" because it’s glorious.
And because we’re on our way to the mountains, in all of our imperfections, as a family.
To celebrate Christmas.
For more on . . .
-N- Stuff : Christmas Thoughts : On Parenting
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