Rescuing the Christmas Tree

It's one of our favorite Christmas traditions...

I can't remember which year we started this tradition...  maybe when Shepard was a new baby.

The whole thing is a word picture...  it was John's idea.  (He's great at word pictures!)

We're trying to teach the kids that the best gift of Christmas is that Jesus came to rescue us!!

So, to help them understand we go rescue a tree...

we go to the store with cut trees and have a blast trying to find the ugliest tree... the one that surely no one will want to buy.  (Honestly, this has turned out to be a whole lot more fun than searching for the perfect tree!  Even the workers at Lowe's got in on it with us this time and had fun helping us.)

 

The tree represents us (sinners) who are in need of a rescue! 

Here is our tree...  ready for a makeover!

 

(This year we tried spraying snow on it - fun!)

 

We always end up loving our tree and it seems precious to us after we have invested so much in it.

(And part of what is making us smile this year is that we have really tall ceilings now and ended up with about the shortest tree available.  But we love it and wouldn't trade it for a big beautiful one.)

 

And, we are reminded that we are thankful for God's gift of rescue to us!

The baby Jesus grew into a man and paid our eternal debt price.

Rejoice!

Little bunny... with fur

They are definitely looking much cuter now with lots of fur!

And they are soooooo soft!

 

I "almost" held one of the sweet little bundles today, but my mom's experience a few days ago has made me a little hesitant...  ah, I just don't like getting messy.  (There's a certain picture from my childhood that says it all...  my siblings are covered head to toe in mud.  My parents made me get in the picture after much protesting on my part.  I think I tiptoed in just for the photo op.  Sigh.  Some things just never change.) Lol.

 

I did hold Charky today, though!  I think that was my first time to ever hold a chicken! :)  The kids were proud of me...  saying, "Well, Mom, you're ONLY 42!"  As if everybody holds chickens... haha.

Marking the first fruit tree...

 

Last year Josiah was baptized in the north pond... and then we let him pick out a fruit tree that we planted there in honor of his salvation.  He chose a peach tree!  (The tree is looking a little bare right now without any leaves... kinda like a big stick in the ground.)

We wanted a "marker" for the tree, so Josiah found a big rock on our property and then my parents' very sweet neighbor helped us get it engraved to mark Josiah's tree.  We got it back last night!

We were so excited...  I loved seeing the smile on Josiah's face when he saw it!

 

We hope to have a fruit orchard someday... 

wouldn't it be wonderful to eventually have a fruit tree for all our children and grandchildren around the pond?  We are praying so!