{"id":821,"date":"2011-12-02T19:00:26","date_gmt":"2011-12-03T00:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/smalltownamerica\/?p=821"},"modified":"2011-11-30T10:24:31","modified_gmt":"2011-11-30T15:24:31","slug":"trimming-the-tree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/2011\/12\/trimming-the-tree.html","title":{"rendered":"Trimming The Tree"},"content":{"rendered":"

This year is the first time we haven’t had a real tree.\u00a0 All our growing up years and all our raising children years we always had a live tree.\u00a0 But, since neither of us can get down on the floor to tighten the tree stand and water the tree, we had to go with an artificial tree.\u00a0 It isn’t very life like and there is no wonderful pine smell, but it is better than no tree at all.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Since we had 6 grand kids with us, we decided to let them decorate the tree.\u00a0 The twins both wanted to put the star on top, so their daddy had one in each arm to get the job done.\u00a0 This year I chose to do a Teddy Bear Christmas.\u00a0 That means we decorate all in Teddy Bears, even down to Teddy wrapping paper.\u00a0 I have lots of Teddy Bears so that is never a problem.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> The children took turns placing the ornaments on the tree.\u00a0 Sometimes Mom and Dad had to help, but Grandpa and Grandma just watched.\u00a0 It was quite entertaining.\u00a0 Everyone had a great time and the tree looked very Teddy Bearish.\u00a0 We had Christmas music playing, we all were singing along and when we were finished, we all had Christmas cookies for a snack.<\/p>\n

It is a bit unusual to\u00a0have Christmas on the day after Thanksgiving, but you do what you have to do when your children grow up and move far away.\u00a0 The spirit of Christmas can be in our hearts anytime.\u00a0 We only have to cultivate it and concentrate on having fun.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year is the first time we haven’t had a real tree.\u00a0 All our growing up years and all our raising children years we always had a live tree.\u00a0 But, since neither of us can get down on the floor to tighten the tree stand and water the tree, we had to go with an…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":420,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,30],"tags":[25,13,46],"class_list":["post-821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration","category-memories","tag-children","tag-family-communications","tag-holiday"],"yoast_head":"\nTrimming The Tree - Small Town America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/2011\/12\/trimming-the-tree.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trimming The Tree - Small Town America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This year is the first time we haven’t had a real tree.\u00a0 All our growing up years and all our raising children years we always had a live tree.\u00a0 But, since neither of us can get down on the floor to tighten the tree stand and water the tree, we had to go with an…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/2011\/12\/trimming-the-tree.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Small Town America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-12-03T00:00:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-11-30T15:24:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/smalltownamerica\/files\/2011\/12\/IMG_0481-300x283.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"dhanny\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Trimming The Tree - 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