ARCTIC BLAST

Oh, the weather outside is frightful...the weather guys are calling it an Arctic Blast. It has been snowing here off and on for over a week. The first large accumulation was on Saturday, Dec 20th, when it snowed for 14 hours straight! Then on Sunday, we got a little more snow and about 3/8ths inch of sleet. We measured the total snowfall last night (Sunday night) at 9 1/2 inches. After a few hours of shoveling and getting the driveway and the car cleared off, and chains on and ready for this morning, we awoke to more snowfall...almost 7 inches fell overnight for a grand total of just over 16 1/2 inches. Record breaking snowfall! So once again we got the shovels and plowed the walkway to the driveway and cleared the snow off the car so Brian could go to work this morning. I even have had to clear a path out the back door and clear a spot for the dog to go potty :) Weather reporters are predicting snow through the 25th...Looks like a white Christmas this year! (Laugh)

Nubbin

We got our Christmas tree on Saturday. The kids picked it out and named it "Nubbin" because of the new little nubs on it's branches. Brandon cut it down and we brought him home. He is a little on the small side, but still a wonderful addition to the family.

I readied the room and found the perfect place to put our little Nubbin. Last year our living room seemed crowded so I wanted to rearrange the furniture to give Nubbin plenty of room to stretch out his branches without feeling cramped. I even unloaded a book case and move it to the hallway.

The room was ready for Nubbin. Brian put him in the stand, which was almost too big for the trunk but means we will be watering him less. After bringing him inside and placing him in the designated place, we soon realized that Nubbin was a runt, a late bloomer (which might be why a tree has new growth in December), and much smaller that we originally thought.

As we contemplated how to decorate Nubbin, I thought about past Christmas trees we have decorated. The last few years we have had a "travel" tree with all of the ornaments we have collected during our travels. Then there was the "santa" tree and the "snowman" tree. We have so many ornaments! Last year I bought new boxes and organized all the ornaments. I even separated out all the kid's ornaments and made each of them an ornament box. How fun it will be when they someday decorate their own trees with all the ornaments that have been given to them during Christmases past.

This year we couldn't decide how to decorate our tree. Nubbin was too small to hold all the ornaments of any one theme, so we decided to do something new. We decided to make all our ornaments. Yep...we decided to get creative with the glue gun. (Even the boys are getting into it!) This will be a project that lasts until Christmas or until we tire of burning ourselves with the hot glue. We set up a crafting station in the garage on the ping pong table. It is nice to be able to leave all the pom poms, popsicle sticks and googly eyes out and ready for someone who gets the itch to create.

Nubbin isn't glamorous. He isn't perfect. But he holds the evidence of the time we are spending together as a family this holiday season. I believe this will be one of our most memorable Christmases...and we will surely get some good laughs for years to come as we reminisce about Nubbin. (Laugh)