We've never had a Christmas tree. Well, that's only partly true. I, Becca, had a tree each year as a child but I've never been the one to put it up. This year we, the Chew family, were blessed to borrow an artificial tree from some friends - thank you Morales's! It was particularly exciting because Joshua has been talking about building a tree for a few weeks."First we'll get a column, like this. Then we'll attach leaves to it," Joshua explained. I actually didn't know how artificial trees were assembled but soon learned that Joshua was right - I think he's on the road to becoming an engineer.
The Lord obviously knew how important this was to Joshua. I also figured it out quickly after his preschool teacher asked me one morning, "So, Joshua keeps telling me that you're building some kind of Christmas tree at your house?" That's when I actually prayed for a Christmas tree. It was one, maybe two prayers and a thought of "how nice would it be to get a tree this year", but the Lord heard and He answered.
Our dear friends, Jes and Steven, heard about Joshua's tree building idea and offered for us to borrow their tree this year. They even delivered it to our door, complete with a tree stand, lights, ornaments, and a star to top it off.
Today we built and decorated the tree. Joshua was hard at work from the beginning. He enthusiastically unpacked all of the branches, sorted them by color, and started distributing ornaments before we had even begun. He put each branch into the center column and was instrumental in making sure the ornaments were evenly distributed - otherwise we'd have two very low branches bearing the load of an entire tree's worth of decorations.
And at Family Bible Time tonight, Joshua and Hannah initiated creating a manger scene under the tree. They gathered the soft toys and dolls, even some blocks to pose for gifts, and set up the cast of characters: baby doll Jesus in a plastic manger, Mary (the lamb) and Joseph (a very large Pooh Bear), the wise men (two monkeys and a wombat) accompanied by their small but trusty camel, shepherds of various soft toy races and creeds, and - my personal favorite - a hippo dressed as a ballerina playing the part of the angel. As a writer of Bible curriculum for toddlers and preschoolers I was particularly proud of the efforts involved in this hands-on lesson.
So, without further ado, here is a video of our Christmas Tree building extravaganza as recorded by our budding photo/video-journalist, Hannah Chew. Enjoy! :)
