Can you tell that my Christmas tree is sporting a bare midriff? I can. The un-twinkling light section in the middle of my tree is almost as offensive to me as seeing the belly button and mid-section of someone while shopping in the good ole Super Target. In Kate's favorite slang: "Eww, gross."
Last year when I was setting up, fluffing out, and preparing our pre-lit Christmas Tree so we could decorate it, I noticed that there was a strand of lights that wouldn't light. We've had our tree for several years, but I still was disappointed. My sweet husband spent literally hours last year trying to fix the problem for me. He changed out every single bulb on the strand, tried new fuses, and did a variety of other smart electrical engineering tasks that are beyond my limited English degree understanding of electronics - but nothing he did made the strand function again. Because I was determined not to buy another tree over a silly light strand, we got another set of white lights to put over the area on the tree where the lights weren't lighting, went ahead with adding the ornaments, and just left it at that.
This year when I was getting the tree ready for decorating I was pleasantly surprised when I plugged all the sections together and found that all the strands of lights were twinkling just as they should!
With excitement I called for Cody to come see what I confidently pronounced a Christmas MIR-acle (or as the less excited say, "miracle"):
Cody rolled his eyes at my adolescent excitement...
which is typical when I'm melodramatic -
and honestly, that's usually pretty often.
But nevertheless, it was a CHRISTMAS MIR-ACLE to me.
And MIR-acles are worth emotion!
We've turned the tree on and off countless times since we set it up - especially since Kate is old enough to understand how to stand on the foot button to do it herself - and every time all the lights sprung back into action... (insert ominous music here) until last night.
Kate was in her bed, Cody and I were sitting on the couch watching TV, and there was a storm full of lightening and thunder rolling in outside. Following an amazing flash and a big boom our electricity went off for a few seconds. The television, our computers, the lamps, and everything else in the house sprung back to life without hesitation - but when I glanced over at our tree I saw that the MIR-acle light strand hadn't been resurrected from the electric hiccup.
My. Mouth. Hung. Open.
I just gasped and pointed at the tree.
Cody looked over, saw what I was gesturing about, and laughed.
Typical boy reaction to minor girl horror.
I acknowledge I'm hopelessly melodramatic at times, but I was very sad my Christmas MIR-acle was now past tense. Since I've been able to recover from my dramatic shock, I've definitely come to the realization that a silly string of lights not lighting up is without question no big deal in comparison to all that's going on in the world right now - yet the sequence of events still left me feeling reflective.
Some miracles we're blessed with for eternity, some for a little while, and some just for a moment. I want to not take any gift in my life for granted - especially not when those gifts are relationships! While I'm 100% thankful for the blessings in my life no matter how long they're intended to last, the challenge of a blessing for me is the fact I usually don't know its exact duration.
When I first started turning the tree on after we set it up, I took time to look and see if all the lights came back on. After they did several times, I stopped looking and just assumed it would always be that way. And when the circumstances changed last night I realized there were things I should have done when all the lights were on (like taking Kate's Christmas picture in front of it and such) - and I would have done that if I realized this particular small Christmas MIRacle wasn't going to last through Christmas.
I know that sounds trivial - AND IT IS - but there are many other situations in my life where that truth isn't trivial. I don't want to take people or blessings in my life for granted! Just because someone is there 99 times in a row I don't want to put off doing or saying things I should because I assume there will be a 100th time. And when a miracle is fresh in my life I look at it often and give thanks for it like I did those first few times the lights came back on, but after a while I stopped looking for the miracle lights just as after almost three years with Kate I'm no longer as conscious of and overwhelmingly in awe of the gift she is in our lives. I never want to stop taking the time to see and be thankful for the miracles in my life!
Maybe that lesson is one of the reasons my MIR-acle Christmas light strand didn't spring back to life last night. I think instead of getting that spare set of lights out of the garage so my tree can be fully dressed like I'd planned on doing later tonight, I'll let it keep its bare midriff this year so when I see that chunk of un-lit lights I'll remember to not take for granted the small or the big miracles in my daily life - not to mention the Christmas miracles all around.
Cheers for Christmas tree midriffs!
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