What's in a Name?

Ecstasy (n)- 2. Excessive joy; rapture; a degree of delight that arrests the whole mind; joy may rise to ecstasy. (Websters 1828 Dictionary)
Doldrums (n)- A sate of inactivity or stagnation.(Dictionary.com)

Saturday, December 12, 2009

The Third Tradition of Christmas

The Third tradition that I enjoy at Christmastime is decorating our family tree with Ethan. This is the second year in a row that we've done this together. Last year was Kayla's first Christmas as a married woman, so she wasn't around. Mom and Dad go shopping and out for a date, so the E Man and I are left alone. I really enjoy doing this with him and I'm learning to cherish time spent alone with him, even though sometimes we clash! ; )
The Christmas tree is thought to be originated in Germany during the 16th century. It was brought to England when Queen Victoria married her German cousin, Albert and through an engraved picture of the royal family with their tree came over to the united states in the 1850s.  
Here's how we do ours:
We place The Peanuts Christmas CD in our CD player and turn up the volume.
Then, after we do some Snoopy dances, we dig into our Christmas boxes.
It's Ethan's job to set up the Veggie Tales manger scene while I set up our porcelain one. (He presses the star that sings "O Little Town of Bethlehem", Junior Asparagus' version, about fifty times during the course of its situating.)

Then we dig out our ornaments. Each ornament holds a special memory for me and makes me think of the people who gave them to us or Christmases past.
Ethan did a fine job with the tree. After giving him some instruction about how to space the ornaments, I had to exercise self-control and let him put them wherever. After all, it's more important for him to enjoy this experience than for us to have the perfect tree!

We always save this one little ornament for mom- it has a story. My Nana would let her kids decorate the tree, but when they went to bed she would rearrange it. She's got a great knack for decorating, so she probably was going mad by the ill-spaced and crowded ornaments!! Mom and my uncles would get up in the morning to find the tree decorated differently, but this little ornament that mom always put on was left in its original place. So, each year, we make sure mom gets to put her ornament on!
Here's our trimmed tree!
After all of the hard work, Ethan and I settle down for a Christmas movie- this year it was The Grinch- along with some hot chocolate and popcorn!


mmmmmm....

How do you decorate YOUR tree??

17 comments:

Samuel Barton said...

well Ill leave a post on My blog after we finish ours this evening.

thats great about what you and Ethan do, enjoy it while you can.

Life is short, so make sure you do what you love with those you love.

Ill give anyone a quarter who figures this message out and brings it decoded to me tomorrow.
-.- ... ---.. --- -.. . .-- .---- ... -.- -... ..- .-. ..... ----.
----. -. .- -- . ... .- -- ..- . .-.. --.- - .... -- .. -. -- - -- .. -- -- .- .. -. . .-.-.- .. - ... --. .-. . .- - - --- - .-
.-.. -.- - --- -.-- --- ..- .--- .. -- .-.-.- - .... . --.- ..- .. -.-. -.- .-. . -.. ..-. --- -..- .--- ..- -- .--. ... --- ...- . .-. - .... . .-.. .- ..-- -.-- -.. --- --. .-.-.- .... .. .... ..
--... ...-- --... ...-- -.- ... ---.. --- -.. . .-- .---- ... -.- -... .-- .---- ... -.- -... -.. . -.- ... ---.. --- .-. .-. .-.
.-. --... ...-- --.. ...-- .- .-.
... -.- .. ..

now Im going to give anyone 50 cents who figures out the one that ill post on my blog.


Samuel

Samuel Barton said...

hint its morse code

Emilu said...

Well in our family we decorate our tree the night after we get it my dad hands them out and us kids put them on and my mom takes pictures. We have a special group of little ornaments that we put on the tree all together because they are all like a mini village and then each kid has a baby 1 Christmas that we put on while mom takes a pic.

Hannah said...

Uha! It's tradition that dad hands out the ornaments. As I recall, somebody wanted to do it differently 1 or 2 years ago and I put up a fuss. Tradition, you know.=) And one year, when Stephen was little, he put a whole bunch of ornaments on one branch so that it was like drooping down. I think we ended up taking off some of the ornaments and dispersing them to different places on the tree!

Hannah said...

P.S. Samuel, I'm not going to try and figure that out for 50 cents! But I'm going to guess it has something to do with Christmas.

Anonymous said...

is the morse code supposed to make sense?

Lance

Samuel Barton said...

Yes, Its A Ham Radio Exchange.
--... ...--
/some weird sentiences/other stuff.
the thing that spells out W1SKB is my
call sign .-- .---- ... -.- -...
hihi.

Samuel

Amanda said...

I love how you randomly posted morse code on my blog, which may or may not have anything to do with Christmas, Samuel. It cracks me up! I also find it humorous that nobody took you up on your offer for 50¢!

Samuel Barton said...

I have been learning it and I wanted to see if anyone would take up my offer. to get them to do it I should have ofered twenty.

haha.
I guess on one is wanting to figure it out.
I thought about putting something about Christmas. but that would be to easy to figure out.

See you all tomorrow, If its not TO COLD!

Samuel

Anonymous said...

The first line of morse code is...

ks8odew1skbur5

Samuel Barton said...

YEs add the spacing and it reads.
ks8o de w1skb ur (your) 599
then it goes on to say a lot more.
good work.

Amanda said...

What does that even mean?

Anonymous said...

It means that I am realy smart to have figured it out!LOL

I busted the code, but I can't Understand the meaning of all the letters and numbers. Would you be so kind as to explain Samuel?

Lance

Natasha said...

That's waayyyy to much work for 50cents!!

Good job Lance.

Amanda said...

Good work, Lance! I guess Samuel owes you 50¢! And I still don't understand the translation!

Samuel Barton said...

Okay The Translation Reads.

KS8O (A ham radio operator in MI)DE W1SKB UR 599 NAME SAMUEL QTH (Location) MINOT, Maine. ITS GREAT TO
TALK TO YOU JIM. the quick red fox jumps over the lazy dog. hihi
73 73 (good bye) KS8O DE W1SKB
W1SKB DE KS8O RRRR 73 73 AR SK (I Have Stopped Sending I (HIM) I (ME)

Now the I at the end means, the Contact has ended.

Now the extra stuff I added to confuse people.
Hahaha.
See you all tomorrow

--... ...--

Samuel

Samuel Barton said...

I'll give him a doller for all that work