Christmas Past and Present

These vintage cards are from my mother-in-law’s stash of Christmas goodies that ended up with us. Happy to know our cards with our Christmas greetings are on their way to friends and family. We also have antique postcards from Dear’s great great aunt. The postmarks are from 1908-1912.

PM1910

We still need to buy our tree to bring home and decorate.

PM1908

PM1912

We’ve had several dry and very cold days. That is about to change so I’m telling myself that today might be the day to go buy our Mystery Tree before the rains come. For those of you new to my blog our Mystery Tree tradition is an idea I borrowed from my sister-in-law Kelly several years ago. We go to the local big box home improvement store and grab a tree that is wrapped with netting and throw it into our truck or car and bring it home without knowing what it will look like. The one thing we look at carefully is how straight the trunk at the bottom of the tree is. When we get it home we set it in it’s tree holder in the right spot in our living room before we cut away the netting and see what we got. We choose to enjoy it no matter what. We’ve found it to be a tradition that works well for us instead of searching for that perfect tree that caused a lot of stress in the past. (The only problem with this reveal is that we don’t get the chance to shake out all the needles that might have accumulated in the netting)

Do you have traditions that carry on from year to year? Do you still send out Christmas cards? Do you do live or artificial for your tree?

Happy Hanukah to any of my Jewish friends who stop by here.

Mystery Tree…

PM1910 (postmarked 1910)

Today over at Mennonite Girls Can Cook I’m sharing our Mystery Tree Tradition that we have embraced the last several years.

This antique postcard is a favorite one that we have from Dear’s Great great Aunt Emma. We still have snow on the ground but it has melted off the streets.

This afternoon we will celebrate the life of a friend who died suddenly a week ago Friday. He was only 69. We will see many old friends from our former church. I hope to hug his wife who was a faithful Sunday School teacher to our boys and several others and cherish the reunions. We are again thankful for the Hope we have in Jesus and the Hope Mick had in Jesus, our Redeemer.

I know not why God’s wondrous grace
To me He hath made known,
Nor why, unworthy, Christ in love
Redeemed me for His own.

Refrain:
But “I know Whom I have believed,
And am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which I’ve committed
Unto Him against that day.”

Cherish those God has put in your life today. Don’t put off giving words of affirmation to those around you. Choose joy!

Unveiling of the Mystery Tree

Some of you are new to my blog and aren’t familiar with a Christmas tradition we started several years back to take the stress out of finding the perfect Christmas tree. Our “Mystery” tree tradition goes like this…

We go to the nearest big box store and look for a tree in a certain height with a straight trunk and grab it with it’s string or netting in tack. This year the 6-7ft. trees in the Douglas Fir variety were about $25.00. We throw the tree in the back of the truck and head home wondering what it might look like once we cut away all the string.

This year it took most of the afternoon for the branches to relax as we had freezing temperatures here in the Seattle area and the tree was frozen. As it thawed we could see that it was another fine Mystery Tree choice. We’ve resigned ourselves to be happy with however it might look. Once the lights and decorations are added I’ll show more photos.

Slowly but surely it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas at this old house.

I was so excited to see that WordPress is continuing their tradition of adding snow to my blog for the month of December!

Have you gotten your tree or started your decorating for Christmas?

I’ll be linking up to ABC Wednesday for the letter U soon. Thank you ABC Team and Denise Nesbitt!

O Mystery Tree, O Mystery Tree…

Our Mystery Tree tradition is continuing this year. On Sunday we put the back seat down in the jeep and headed to the Home Depot to pick out our tree. Our round trip from home to the store and back again took a little under 45 minutes total! We arrive, we spy out the trunks of the trees in our height range in the piles where the trees are still all tied up, we pick one, buy it, throw it into the back of the jeep and head home where the stand is ready and waiting. Dear cuts off a portion of the trunk and gives it a good thrust into the stand. Tighten the screws on the trunk and get ready for the reveal…

It’s so much fun to stand back and watch as Dear cuts the string off the branches.

Tah Dah!

When I got home late last night Dear had put the lights on the tree so I can now finish decorating it. We’ll see what gets done today.

Little by little it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas around this old house.

Life continues to keep us on our knees in the midst of this joyful time of Advent and more and more we look to the Hope we have in Christ. We had one of those 3 A.M. phone calls where you know the news can’t be good. A Brother in law had a heart attack that was caught in time and arteries were cleared. He’ll be home soon. We know the reality of how fragile life can be. We always wait for good news from Afghanistan. “Made it back from the Mission, I’m O.K., going to bed now, talk more later.” We rally around each other supporting each other in whatever life throws our way.

Faith

I will have faith,
However dreams are shattered;
I will have faith that righteousness can live;
I will have faith e’en when my heart is breaking,
To work and pray and give!

I will have faith
When troubled is life’s ocean,
When low-blown clouds the Pilot’s face shall hide;
I will have faith when my fair ship is battered;
I will await the turning of the tide!

I will have faith
That God is still in Heaven;
I will have faith that He is by my side;
I will have faith though every star is darkened,
That He and truth abide!

The Residence, Denver

In the Meantime…

See this tree on the cart?

It’s still outside my house in this original state. Saturday is the appointed day to cut the base and cut away some limbs and bring it in the house!

No way is it going to look like any of these great decked out trees I saw at Molbaks nursery in Woodinville, Washington.

I enjoy looking at all these trees decorated with fabulous themes in mind but I’m content with my homey classic tree with all our ornaments that have been gathered over the years.

There were other fun displays in this great store, too.

Today…Saturday…our tree is going up and getting trimmed.

What does your Saturday hold?

Mystery Tree 2010 ~

Mosaic Monday at Little Red House will be in full swing soon.

We had our mystery tree delivered on Saturday and I’m happy to say it’s another good one. There was no fussing and stressing at a Christmas Tree lot trying to get agreement on the perfect tree. It’s fun to anticipate what it will look like after we cut the strings. We have enjoyed this tradition for the last three years and it will continue.

The lights are going on right now and I should have it decorated by tonight. I did put a few other decorations up. My favorite…

The quilted place mats that I put on the hearth were made by Wendy of Ivory Spring. Thank you Wendy for sharing your beautiful handiwork with me. I appreciate it.

I’ll be sharing more of the Christmas decorations around the house later in the week. How are your preparations coming?

Photobucket replaced all my photos with ugly black and grey boxes and they are holding my photos hostage until I pay them lots of money. I’m slowly going through all my posts and trying to clean them up and replacing some photos. Such a bother.

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage

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