That's What Friends are For

I usually like to have our Christmas tree up on Thanksgiving weekend, as early as possibly in order to enjoy the beauty of the lights and decorations.  But since the girls have all been married, it's been harder to be motivated to get it up.  With the kids around, it's more fun to decorate, having the company to do it together.  And this year, I was even less motivated because I wasn't sure if it was going to be an ordeal for Andy.  We have an artificial tree that needs to be put together and I didn't want it to be an exercise in frustration for him.

Well, my good friend, R. offered to come down on Sunday afternoon and help us put it up.  When I mentioned that to Andy, he immediately went to the basement and brought up the tree and put it together.  He got it together, we arranged the branches, but then between the two of us, we couldn't figure out why there was only one strand of lights that worked.  We tried different things, and I wanted to give up and wait for R to help us figure it out, but he didn't quit.  I finally found a missing cord, we plugged it in and voila!  The tree was lit.  When R arrived, she helped me decorate and we enjoyed the afternoon together.

It's my angel tree...all kinds of different angel ornaments and my friend, R was an angel to help us.

Usually, our Christmas day is spent by ourselves because all our kids are married with families of their own.  We do different things together, one year riding down to Ocean City with our bikes to ride the boardwalk.  It was a beautiful spring-like day and we made lovely memories riding on the boardwalk on Christmas Day.

This year, though, we just didn't want to spend it alone, so making sure the girls were ok with our idea, we decided to go visit each of them.  Since Dawn lives in NJ, close by, we went and visited her on Christmas Eve - day time.  We got to see the work they had done on their house recently and spend some time playing with Kira.  Kira had been moved into a new room with nice new decorations - Pink-a-licious Princess room!

On Christmas Day we drove over to the Lindsays and had a delicious turkey dinner with Christy and family.

After visiting with them, we drove on over to see Amy and her family.  Katy had just been wakened from a nap and not too excited about having her picture taken.  But hey!  We're into reality, right?  Tell it like it is.  Don't sugar coat it.

It was a delightful day, seeing all the kids, enjoying the blessing of family.  God is good.