A Christmas Trial

I don't know about you, but I got a taste of Christmas "gone bad" this evening and eggnog wasn't involved ....... I had a wonderful day today with my bible study/prayer group. We had a wonderful lunch and I left them feeling light on my feet. I met up with Scott and he was a grouch this afternoon!!! Which is unusual for him. I'm not used to it when he is grouchy. But needless to say, I let him "be" and went about the afternoon. I carpooled and returned home with the boys plus a friend, Brantley. As they were playing, I walked past our live Christmas tree in the living room and noticed all these black small circles under it. I thought, "what in the world is that?" To me and my naked eye, it was not one tick but a hundred ticks under the tree - some dead, some alive. Scott was home and he looked and he thought the same thing. Holy Cow, we have ticks from our live North Carolina tree ..... hmmm.... wonder if our smaller live tree in the playroom has them. Didn't see them but hey, the live tree was fine yesterday so who knows ... well, after research and my sweeping and removing lights and trim from the tree, it turned out to be some other creature from the aphid family which is apparantly running rampid according to UF's website. Needless to say, harmless or not, I wanted the trees gone. So both trees are outside against Scott's judgement which he "respectively disagreed" with me! He really did .... he was more into the facts than the emotion of bugs all over the house!!!! Well, we removed the second tree and I found a bunch of carpenter ants under it and the carpet .... at this point, I think we both were just in shock. Mind you in the midst of this, Scott is redoing the kid's bath and installing boarding and railing and a new cabinet. So I'm just adding to the stress with my tree dilemma. AND he had school this evening and earlier, he had finished reading a whole book and writing a paper before class. So honestly, I wasn't helping the matter ..... but he left for school and I ordered pizza for the kids. I walked into the kitchen and opened a cold can of diet coke and thought .... ooooh, this is good and will be even better if in the freezer for about ten minutes. So I opened the fridge and set it in, well, until it fell out of my hand and hit the floor, exploding and fizzing AND spinning all over the cabinets, tile, fridge, and my feet. Now I'm standing in cold diet coke and watching in slow motion this can spin until it comes to a stop. I was numb ... not a response even came except to get the paper towels. Fortunately, my friend, Dana, came over with her children to have pizza and she walked in to find me standing in the kitchen looking at it. She helped clean up and we ate our pizza and had a good heart to heart. She left later and I thought, "I'll check my email and see if Scott wrote me from class." Jack comes to me ... Mom, I had a small accident with my juice. Okay. Small? How about the antonym of small? How about 1/2 a GALLON of orange juice is all over the floor, the cabinet and down all four drawers, front and INSIDE the drawers??? "Jack, how about you go finish watching Chronicles of Narnia and I'll clean up, okay?" I cleaned up and asked God, "EXACTLY what are you trying to teach me in all this tonight?" I put everyone to bed and layed down with Erica. She asked what I did today and I recounted from morning to end. And I said, "you know what, Erica?" And it hit me talking to her......my picture of Christmas was my family around our "three" trees, the perfect decorations, the cinnamon smells and music in the background. WELL, I now have ONE slim FAKE tree. And the thought of Carol Kent speaking last night came into my mind. She will be spending Christmas in the prison area with her son. www.carolkent.org Jesus Christ was born to die for my sin. I don't deserve my family, my home, my decorations, or the trees, the smells or any of it ... but because of his grace and mercy in my life, He has chosen to bless me in this season with where I am. How are you blessed and what are you going to do with it this season? That's where I landed this evening laying on Erica's bed ... I said to her, "in all of this, Christmas isn't even about trees and presents." Her response? "Nope." Spoken from the mouths of babes .....