Note: Written yesterday super late, so I posted to Substack but forgot to crosspost. There will be another entry this evening for Day 8. This is Day 7's December Gratitude Challenge...

I’ve been cross-stitching a good portion of the day, so I never actually did a handwritten entry today in my journal. When I wasn’t stitching, I was decorating the tree with my husband and my son. This is our end result:

Our tree is a mishmash of ornaments ranging back from before my husband and I were born - those first ornaments our parents made as they were starting their lives together. Ornaments that we made as kids. Ornaments I’ve received over years of cross stitch exchanges. Ornaments our son has made growing up. The gigantic ball you see he made this past week after we did a shopping trip to Michael’s because he felt the need to be artsy (and I rejoiced, because I will always support art and craftiness in any form).

Our tree is a tree of memories. Every year the ornaments vary, since we have different boxes. I honestly could decorate two trees if we had the room for a second one in the house.

And tonight, when the lights are off and the living room is just softly lit by that gentle tree glow, I am four years old again, looking up at the living room tree in my childhood home, recognizing some of the same ornaments that now hang on my tree 2,000 miles away.

I am grateful for the quiet joy seeing the Christmas tree brings me every year. The revisiting of memories that I hold fondly. Simple things, like that vision of the living room when I was four. The quiet joy of Christmas wraps each year in a little bow - a protective circle of peace that surrounds all of the chaos that the rest of the year seems to bring.

It all fades away under the electric light of the tree.

If only life could always be this quiet and peaceful.

Good night all.