O, tannenbaum

Edith receives major points for picking out a Christmas tree today. It took her about two minutes, and she nailed it. Tom and I hadn't even noticed the tree she suggested, but it had no flaws and turned out to fill the relevant corner of the family room perfectly.

Her first suggestion was a nine-foot Frasier, and I said simply that it was too big, we didn't have enough ornaments to fill it. She then ran off down the path to Tom, and by the time I caught up, she was standing beaming next to a lovely, full, six-foot Douglas fir. "We have enough ornaments for it," she said proudly. "And I even picked one that's not too expensive!"

Edith was amused by the tying of the tree to the top of the new car.

On the way home she boasted again of picking a good tree that wasn't too expensive and then asked, "Why do we like to buy things that are not too expensive?"

Don't know if she put together my explanation of expensive with its opposite. Yesterday Edith was commenting on how much she likes her sneakers. "And they're cheap, too!" she boasted. Wondering where she had picked up that concept, I asked her what cheap meant. "Good for buying," she said promptly. I see we'll soon have to introduce the distinction between cheap: 1. piece of junk and cheap: 2. a good deal.

Edith had fun decorating the tree with us. Enough fun, in fact, that when we'd hung all the ornaments she ran off to find items in her toybox that plausibly would hang on a tree -- e.g. the xylophone mallet, which has a loop on one end. (See below, next to the nutcracker.)



Tom and I then exited for awhile, Tom to the grocery store and me to the main room, from which I could hear Edith happily singing away as she played in the family room. When I came in again about fifteen minutes later, I thought the tree looked a little different. I glanced over at the pile of ornaments in front of Jesus' manger by the fireplace and realized the bottom half of the tree had been denuded. Apparently, decorating a Christmas tree is enough fun that Edith is of the mind we should do it again and again this season.