I'm sitting here watching our Christmas tree, still lit up before I unplug everything and go to bed. As I look it all over, I see ornaments that bring back memories, ornaments that recall stories for me. I see many old, hand-made ones from when the girls were small, in grade school and even preschool. How some of these have survived over the years is amazing to me. I see ones given to us by old friends, others given to us by friends from previous churches served, that we have lost contact with. I see a silver bell bearing the date, "Noel 1987"- our first Christmas together. I see another one given me by a friend after 9-11-01, commemorating that date in brass. We have a couple that were hand-painted and hand-carved by one of Lisa's relatives, and another that is made of gold, and shaped by a craftsman in Israel. Two of my favorites are ones with the girl's pictures in them, when Ansley was 8 and Kelsey was 6, that were made at New Orleans Seminary when I went down to graduate in 1998. And like on every parents' tree, there are the customary plaster-of-Paris, hand-painted angels they did so many years ago as well.

I've been to people's houses who have these perfect, color-coordinated, professional, cultured, sophisticated Christmas trees- you know the kind I'm talking about. Those are truly beautiful, works of art to be admired in perfectly decorated homes. I'm not knocking those who craft their trees with precision to perfection. But I much prefer our Christmas tree- it may not be the prettiest by some standards, but nearly each decoration tells a story, and each strand is hung as a family. In a literal sense, this is my "family tree", chronicling the years of our marriage and our children.

And every year, I hope we'll still find a way to hang a new memory on one of its branches.