Tree Day

"It's 100% OK to be a little cautious with your optimism, but not at the expense of feeling any at all! Hope is valid. Allow yourself hope." Adam K. Kurtz

Last year I worked my way through  the season of Advent with what I called Christmas Moments around my home. It was fun for me...and hopefully it was OK for you too. This year....because it's such a different sort of year for us....I'm going to focus on the liturgical themes of Advent: hope, peace, joy and love. So this week I'll continue with the theme of hope.  

Today is official Tree Day in the Shupe household. I did get the tree out of storage a few days ago because artificial trees need a lot of fluffing. And this year I pulled out the bigger tree that we've had for years. 

Over the years the lights that came with the tree slowly started to fail....and at the end of December in 2022 Paul and I painstakingly untwisted and cut out ALL the lights. It was a tedious project...but the dead lights on the tree were sad...but I just couldn't throw away a perfectly good tree.

I wrote a post about it...and ironically enough it was called Optimistically Hopeful! 

https://joyfulputtering.blogspot.com/2022/12/optimistically-hopeful.html

Last year we used our smaller tree with white lights. And being optimistically hopeful....it was time for the big tree again. I really wasn't sure how it faired after our big project. But once it was fluffed....it looked pretty good. I strung up the lights the old fashioned way...and added my felt garland collection and light covers. I'll add the ornaments over the next several days. This old tree...is as good as new!

 Allow yourself hope!