Thanksmas Tree

Christmas 2020 was the first Christmas for our family after Tom died. Prior to that year, I had not put up a Christmas tree for several years. Putting them together and decorating them was fun when the kids were home to help us, but later on, we just didn’t enjoy it that much. I always missed getting to watch the lights in a dark room when we didn’t have a tree.

In 2020, I was looking for a way to help myself look forward to the holidays. The hospice chaplain had encouraged me to “make a plan”. I thought about how one of the things I did like about having a tree up was watching the lights, but dealing with putting together an artificial tree-blech!

Then I remembered this little pallet tree that one of my former child care moms had made for me. It was our Kindness Tree and we used it to notice little acts of kindness in our child care day and then we would post notes on the tree.

I took myself to Wal-Mart and bought some garland and lights, then I dug through our ornaments and picked out a few special ones and I decorated this little tree. It needed a tree topper so I used a Santa had that I had purchased to wear when I was teaching a webinar lol.

Then last year, I set the tree up again. After Christmas last year, I slipped a big black garbage bag over the tree and stored it, so that made setup very easy this year.

I am not sure yet if I will get out any of my other decorations for the holidays this year, but I am happy and thankful to have this little ray of joy shining in my house and ready for our Thanksmas celebration next week!