Yuletide Cheer

Here are the before and after photos of our tree trimming work day. This is one of my favorite days, but I can remember a darker time in my teens when my parents would set the stage for a wonderful family moment of tree trimming and general holiday cheer, and all I wanted was to be with my friends. Now if the youth group were trimming trees in the narthex, I would be there with bells on, but to engage in this tradition with only my eager parents was too much of a effort for my adolescent body. I am sure that payback time is only a few years away, but at the moment, it is a true delight. On the Friday after Thanksgiving, the town of Wheaton has a big Christmas kick-off celebration where all the stores stay open from 6 pm to 9 pm. They give out hot apple cider, cookies and treats and decorate their storefront windows in all sorts of creative displays. The streets are blocked of for the families and carollers to carouse about. This holiday season we had the first snow of the year Friday morning...so the streets of Wheaton were blanketed in white as the horse drawn carriages jingled by. If you've ever seen funny farm, it was definitely a "cue the deer" moment.