An early trimming of my Christmas tree ...

I've never ever in my life put up my Christmas tree BEFORE Thanksgiving! But Thanksgiving is SO LATE this year, and I've been wanting (for the last six years or so) to trim my tree with my grandchildren!

Emma is such a great helper!
She was thrilled to assemble my tree with me!

I should back up, however, and first tell you the story of this particular Christmas tree! Since I live in a very small, rather teensy tiny place (!) I was looking to purchase a tall narrow tree this year. I had seen one at the end of last season over at Fruit Basket that was perfect for my little cottage. But I could not for the life of me remember how much $$ it was! So in the back of my mind all year, I was kind of planning on just getting that beautiful tree for this Christmas. However, when I was out shopping for it Thursday night I found that it greatly exceeded my budget. I prayed before I entered the store and asked the Lord to direct me to the right tree and help me to keep to my budget. I was so disappointed when I saw the price tag on the beautiful tree I had wanted! So I went back out to my car, prayed again, and drove on over to Walmart to see if I could find something similar ... but for less money. I was SO thankful to find this one at an astonishingly LOW price. It's not as beautiful, but it will do just fine. Thank you, Lord!  

We got the tree put together Friday night. However, the lights that I had purchased on sale to add to the tree were the wrong kind! So all of us drove over to Lowe's Friday night and we got the right lights for our tree. The good thing about going to Lowe's Friday night was that we found out about a great event for the kids that is going to happen December 14 right at Lowe's. I was able to get the information and once we register on-line, each of the kids will be able to build their own wooden Christmas train engine ... and paint it and everything, for free!

Emma dubbed herself the "light checker"
and was happy to plug in each strand to make
sure all the lights were working.

We played beautiful Christmas carols while we decorated the tree together. It was quite chaotic for awhile with all of the boxes of ornaments and three very grabbing kiddos ... but we managed to trim the tree without breaking a single ornament! Wow! 

I will remember this time with much happiness!