Works for Candy Canes (and Lunch)!

C

Isaac came over for the morning while Kathy went to her Bible study at church. We had school first and then went downstairs to tackle the tree. I "assigned" him the ornaments around the part of the tree that he could reach and I took off the ones above that line...and packed them into boxes. We sectioned off the bottom part of the tree and after he got all those ornaments off he got a piece of the candy cane that had been hanging on the tree! He was pretty excited about having lunch over here so we stopped a bit before noon to have lunch...he wanted to be sure that he got to eat lunch before his mommy came to pick him up! He had one of those little mandarin ornages as part of his lunch and after I started peeling it for him he finished peeling it. He thought that it was pretty funny that the peel looked like a gingerbread man after he got it off. His gingerbread orange peel man is sitting next to his plate. After lunch I challenged him to finish getting all his ornaments off the tree before his mommy came and he did. I got all mine off and was getting close to having them all boxed up before Kathy came to get him. Isaac is a great little worker! He would have done the work happily without the treat of a candy cane...the candy cane just made it a little more fun! After Isaac left I headed off to get my hair cut. Mid afternoon I got the "tree brigade" (Graham, Elijah, Isaac, and Joseph) to come over. They had the tree apart in no time. And, then carried the branches upstairs to the tree box that resides in the Christmas closet. That box has been dragged down and up the stairs a multitude of times over the more than 30 years that we have had the tree...so the box has seen better days, but we need it to store the tree so...we now just let it stay ensconsed in the closet and we bring the branches to and from it. Today the boys marched (as in hup, two, three, four)up and down the stairs with the branches. Graham packed the branches all up...and that deed is done for another year!!!!! Hip-hip-hooray! If it hadn't been for them I wouldn't have met my goal of having the tree undecorated and put away before March 1! Thanks a lot boys!

Oh, and, by the way, Woody officially finished the tree as he took the last two ornaments off the tree that were too high for me to reach. We still have eight boxes chock full of ornaments stacked behind the glider love seat...but my back is screaming, "No, no, no!" So they will wait for another day to get brought up the stairs. At this point I turn all the Christmas decoration boxes (multitudes lined up in our upstairs hallway) over to Woody to be packed back in the Christmas closet. We had a very rainy morning so no going outside to work in the yard for Woody today. He did walk to and from the prayer room this evening. He is home and downstairs in front of the TV with a book and/or crossword puzzles. I am heading into my chair as soon as I hit publish...been a long busy day for me and I'm ready to put my feet up.