O Night Divine

I've lost 2 presents.
It's official.
It's Christmas.

It happens every single year and the crazy part... we rarely find them. 



A few weeks ago we sent our older boys out to get a tree.



It wasn't the tallest and grandest one but it was rather cute!




We all arranged our busy schedules so that everyone could take part in the tree decorating festivities.





Granddad has been helping us decorate our tree for years now!




Oh what fun!!



Every single Reece's Rainbow ornament finds a home on our tree.  If you look really closely you can see Charlie's ornament.  He was my Angel Tree babe last Christmas.  How hard we were praying for a family for him.  Happy Happy Days because yesterday he stepped off the plane and is going to be sitting under his own tree this Christmas.





We had a blast decorating it and putting the train around the base.


It was a tiny tree but quite pretty and smelled wonderful.

It smelled too wonderful.  Ben's allergies went into full fledged crazy. This never happened before so it took a few days to figure it out.

Once we realized it was the tree we realized that something or someone had to go!

It was a hard decision.

Put Ben in the garage.

Put the tree in the garage.

Ben... tree...

Hmmm.....

As much trouble as he gives me whenever I want to take his picture I did consider sending him to the garage.

But, after much debate... we took our sweetly decorated tree and put it in the garage.

Last night - 3 days before Christmas... we brought it back inside.

Happy days!

The little boys are very very relieved that their tree is back and we are all collectively holding our breath that Ben's allergies don't go nuts again!

We are crazy busy trying to get everything done that needs to be done before the Sunday morning chaos around the Christmas tree.

This morning (2 am) Rob took his turn driving John to Shriners and back.  Round two of casting on his legs and feet.

It's a crazy, exhausting time of the year.


For many it's a hard time of the year.

I realize anew that we are very blessed.  I get the privilege and honor and joy of celebrating the birth of Christ with my children and husband and extended family in a matter of days.

I get the thrill of watching presents being opened. I get to laugh at the goofy presents. I get to marvel at the cool ones.  I get to open the bag of handmade presents made lovingly by the hands of my little boys.  I get to watch my five men play with the funny shooter guns I bought them (shhh don't tell).  I get to make Christmas brunch with my best friend in the world while listening to The Messiah playing in the background.  I get to do so much. I am so blessed.

Yes. We are busy.  All of us have been or are in the middle of battling coughs and congestions.  Our book is in the final final stages and there are so many details that need to be done we start going into panic mode when we think about it.  But we barely have time to think about it.

And I lost 2 presents.

One for Ben and one for Elijah.

It's Christmas.

In the midst of the busy.... In the midst of the hard. For those who find this time of the year to be too much. Too lonely.  Too filled with memories.


This is what it's all about...

This...

Fall on your knees, O hear the angel voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born!

Weary, tired, overburdened world...

Rejoice.

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

O night, O night divine!