"She's a beaut, Clark!"

I'm just going to go ahead and say it. It's a sad, sad little Christmas tree...if you can call it that. Sorry, Mom, but it's the truth. When we told the boys on Sunday that we were going to decorate the Christmas tree, I think they were a little confused when, instead of heading to the farm, tromping through the forrest, and chopping down our beautiful twelve-foot live noble, Aaron brought down a small dusty box from the storage room and proceeded to pull out a crumpled, artificial "tree." Looking at the boys' puzzled expressions while Aaron "built" our tree, and then exclaimed, "She's a beaut, Clark!" (name that movie), I literally burst into hysterical laughter. But, you know what? For the first time ever, I think the boys really did have a great time decorating the tree! Since I couldn't care less about styling the tree just right or making it look just so, we just let the boys go to town with it and decorate it as they please. Put a third ornament on that same branch? Sure! Go ahead. Now I'm not saying I'm going to convert to the artificial tree and let the boys go willy-nilly with tinsel any time again soon, but maybe next year I won't get quite so caught up in making the tree just so, and let the boys join in on the decorating fun, too.