Eyes to See

People who dislike children miss so much.  Poverty unrealized.

We always take the tree down the day after Epiphany, at which point it's just a dry husk trying to shed as many needles as quickly as possible. Children see the life and possibility in all things, though, even a discarded tree.  This is both God's gift to them and their gift to us.

A couple of days after the Christmas season ended, Ezekiel and the younger children called me outside in a high state of suppressed excitement.  They led me down the path to the treehouse, but veered off halfway down, leading me through a newly erected archway to a seating area around our pitiful tree, which they'd propped upright with the support of snow and scrap lumber..

Ezekiel handed me a mug of (almost hot) coffee, and we just sat together and enjoyed the tree all over again, newly decorated with rose hips, winter berries, and dried goldenrod, crowned with a plastic bottle-angel-topper and under which was a new creche with angel figures, the Babe, His parents, and the wise man, all hand-fashioned by Ezekiel that morning. (They told me that Marigold the pup had snatched and stolen the third wise man. I thought the snowman replacement was a novel touch.)

Children can't help but share.
I asked them bring me the camera to mark the magic.
I hope God allows me to keep this memory.