Decorating Tradition
This year when decorating the house for Christmas, the boys assured me they were much older and could handle the fragile ornaments usually relegated to adults. So I let my seven- and eight-year-old take the delicate beauties from Mawmaw, who had retrieved them from the boxes, and hang them on the tree. The result was a Bermuda triangle front and center where we had a parade of antique wooden ornaments, angels clumped with angels, and snowman families happily hanging together. Individual beauty was lost, but the arrangement told a story of their imaginations and accomplishment at being able to hang the eggs handblown by my mother when I was their age. The problem was the tree leaned forward, tilting toward their eager hands and busy minds. So once they went to sleep, I did what my mother always did and redecorated the tree. They were dismayed (when I read this to the older one, he corrected me by saying they were actually appalled) upon awaking the next morning, but I stood firm