One of the Neely Team idiosyncrasies is that we like to set up our Christmas tree before Thanksgiving every year. While some would say that this makes them forget about the true and important reason for Thanksgiving, it has quite the opposite effect on us! The soft lights, homey smell, and peaceful atmosphere make us slow our busy life and enjoy each other, and give praise and thanks to the Lord who has brought
us through yet another year.
In the fall, Daddy and Herman usually go away for a hunting trip, and while they’re gone, all of the girls do very girly things. :)By the time they come home, every
thing is in place and very Christmas-looking. This year, however, Herman stated that he REALLY wanted to help with the tree, much to our
surprise, and so “the boys” helped us set everything up! What fun! Daddy headed up getting all of the decorations out the their hiding spot in the garage, while Mommy and Jessi strung the lights, and the rest of us fluffed the branche
s. 🙂 (By the way, we do use a fake tree, and we LOVE it!! :)) After those things were done and the tree was standing str
aight, tall and beautiful, Mommy took an excursion into the kitchen and made warm, ooey gooey chocolate chip cookies for all of the decorators while they put the ribbons, flowers, and bows on. It got late, so after enjoying our
luscious snack, we went to bed and then put the ornaments the next afternoon. Now everything is up and in order: the lit garland above the cabinets, the front porch décor, etc, etc.
One thing I particularly enjoyed about putting everything up was the cheerfulness and joy everyone displayed. Even when one of the strands of lights wouldn’t work and Amanda, Jessi, and I had to run to the store, delaying the progress a tad, the little ones made the best of it and played a game while we were
gone. Many hands did indeed make light work (only this was rather fun work :)) and in snip -snap- lickety-split, everything was complete! As the Christmas season approaches, remember to thank the Lord for the unique and special family He has given you!
Merry Christmas! Folks have been busy around here decorating for Christmas too. We are enjoying y’all’s new CD, another favorite! 🙂
One of my MANY faults is that I say things that I think are humorous, even at the risk of people going, Huh?–so here goes nothing! Assuming that some Neely, sometime in his or her life, has read Dr. Seuss books, I do hope that PAPA YURTLE and all the Neely Team will have a very Merry Christmas! We have all enjoyed “following” the activities and “everyday” life of the Neely Team, since the website has been revised.
Huh?
This was my first visit to your site! I agree wth Dan that it looks top-notch!
Yeah for good, faithful, long-term trees! Ours has been saving us money since the 1990’s!
Go Mr. Neely – I guess you never know what you might find in those Christmas decoration boxes 🙂 !
Excellent perspective on the early Christmas decorating! As one of our now favorite Christmas songs goes, “Jesus is the reason, He’s the one and only reason for the season (Thanksgiving too).”
Your house must be beautifully decorated, I’m sure the pictures are only a small taste of the finished masterpiece.
Artificial trees work great. We had to replace ours a few years ago b/c it looked more like the leaning tower 🙂