Day 11: The Tree

I have always loved seeing beautifully decorated Christmas trees. I love the lights. Every ornament tells a story. And it feels like Christmas has really arrived as soon as the star is place atop the tree. No matter how short on cash my parents were we always had a real, beautiful tree growing up. Each child had their own box of special ornaments, which we placed on the tree ourselves and took with us when we had families and homes of our own. Shelby too has a fondness for Christmas trees and she made this clear from her very first Christmas. She couldn't walk yet. In fact, she wasn't even crawling. But she could easily scoot across the hardwood floors.  And when no one was paying attention to her, for just a few minutes, she scooted over to the sparkling tree. She reached her little hand up and into the tree. And as quick as can be, she tugged on a strand on lights and started to pull the tree over on herself. We managed to save Shelby and the tree -- but barely. Now that she's older, Shelby loves to hear this story and loves even mote to pull out all the ornaments and place them on our tree. This year I have a lot of anxiety about putting up our tree. We usual have it up by now, but with Cooper grabbing at and climbing on everything; it feels like an accident waiting to happen. I tried to talk mike and Shelby into getting a few small table tree, forgoing the full-sized tree this year, but they're not having it. So for now, we are just holding off on putting up the tree until a little closer to Christmas. I said a week before Christmas. Shelby is begging for two weeks (today). We'll probably end up in the middle.