O Christmas Tree

Presenting...

The Barnette Family Christmas Tree 2014!

Every Christmas, each of our children get to choose a new ornament for our tree that is meaningful to them that year.  This year, John chose a Duke basketball ornament to commemorate the Duke game he went to with his dad a few weeks ago at Cameron Indoor Stadium over in Durham.

I actually found a tablet ornament for Christopher so that he will someday remember the love affair he had with his first real piece of technology which he received for his 12th birthday this year:  a Kindle.  Believe it or not, Christopher knows what each of those icons on the ornament mean.  Ha!

 And Anna's ornament this year HAD to be a Barbie.  Anna loves playing with Barbie!

 Truth be told, with the exception of the new ornaments we add, our Christmas tree looks the pretty much the same every year.  And we like it that way.  After making several moves, the five of us find it quite comforting to stare at that same tree with the same ornaments each year.  The stockings may hang on a different mantle, and to find us Santa might have to climb down a different chimney than he did a few years ago:  but our old faithful tree always remains the same.

Kudos to Tim, the ornament doctor who performed triage on all the ornaments which broke since last year.  This year's critical patients were Christopher's M & M riding a stick pony from 2008, and Anna's ballerina from 2010, both of whom had broken legs.  Thanks to a lot of Super Glue and a little TLC, both are recoooping nicely on the tree again.

Our family believes that we and our ornaments have to get back up, brush it off, and move on.  :) 

p.s. - Kudos to my friend Betty H. for pointing-out that Tim is working with superglue without a paper underneath...which she accurately points-out is either "the sign of a good ornament fixer or a future table refinisher."  Ha!  Good one, Betty!