All three boys put ornaments on the tree.
Together.
Mostly at the same time.
It was a Christmas Miracle.
Christopher gets to be one of the big guys this year, so he gets to reach higher to put up some of the breakable ornaments.
The non-breakables are lower down, so youngsters can't hurt them.
I love Sam's focus face as he tries to find the perfect spot for an ornament.
Jacob is an old pro.
He even had his own box of non-breakable ornaments from which he could choose.
Now that he can read too, he would call out for his brothers if he came across an ornament that they had made or had a picture of them.
Something funny I learned.
They don't know what the other ones looked like as babies. It's hard for them to tell who was who.
I had to write names on a couple things because they didn't know, and I wouldn't want ornaments to fall in the wrong hands.
But that wasn't a problem tonight.
Actually the only one who had trouble with things falling out of hands was me.
For the first time, none of the kids lost an ornament on the big tree.
Last year, we lost a couple. But this year, the only person who dropped one was me, and it wasn't a breakable. I thought it was, but it turned out, the pair of teddy bears with our names is not glass.
They got ALL the ornaments on the tree.
Generally, we don't count lights or ornaments to see how many we have.
I know it's a lot. But I don't have numbers.
We added almost dozen new ones from our road trips over the last year: one from Great Wolf, a Starbucks mug ornament from Georgia, (I need one from Indiana!), a Lincoln ornament from our adventures this summer, a Smokies NP ornament, and a Mammoth Cave NP ornament top my favs.
There were also a few homemade ones that just never got put away last year. I now have a storage spot on the mantle next to this tree, so they don't get left behind or forgotten.
This year, Jacob was thrilled to be the one to put the angel on top.
He hasn't had this job before.
And he did a great job, except that it wouldn't stay. It kept wobbling.
So when Daddy put him down, and corrected it, he burst into tears.
Eric pointed out, the boys are getting awfully big to lift up now.
We're thinking maybe next year, put the angel on first instead of last.
Maybe.
It occurs to me that we've been putting this same Angel on our tree for 20 years.
We bought her at Target our first year together, and amazingly, there was a typo, she rang up for like 75% off. We have more than gotten our money's worth, and now she's our family heirloom.
Afterwards, we just sat there in the dark, and enjoyed our work.
All 5 of us on the couch, snuggled fireside by tree light. And enjoyed it.
It's a Beautiful Tree.
Tomorrow we'll try to get the littler two finished.