It's beginning to look a lot like....

You guessed it! Christmas!! It has been thrilling to enjoy the beauty of the season through Whitney's eyes. Her understanding of the meaning, traditions, colors, sounds, etc., associated with this joyous time is starting to develop. We got a small Frasier Fir tree last weekend and I had the hair-brained idea last Sunday afternoon (while Ben was at the Colts game) to let Whitney "help" me decorate the Christmas tree. My nicely organized trays of ornaments soon became her latest "toys" and the lives of fragile ornaments stood in the brink. We re-shifted our plans for the afternoon rather quickly, but Whitney still enjoyed playing with some less fragile ornaments and pretending to put them on the tree. She kept looking at the Santa ornaments and saying "Noah." I remembered that she has a Little People's Noah's Ark set...and that Noah and Santa do look like they could be brothers. Too cute! She recognizes the difference now and has been saying "Santa" over and over!! But, after our second annual sob fest while seeing the jolly ol' soul yesterday, I realize that, for Whitney, he is best accepted in ornament and book form. :)

The sweetest sound of the season thus far is to hear the name "Jesus" spoken from her lips. She is fascinated with this tiny baby who is so special and actually has a name (unlike all of the other nameless babies in her books). She is beginning to learn about, and say, the most precious name of all. Granted, sometimes it sounds like "Cheesus," which reminds me of the episode (entitled Grilled Cheesus) of Glee in which the male lead sees a vision of Jesus in his grilled cheese sandwich. Hmmm. Yeah, that's what I was thinking, too. I digress....

I've been thinking back over the last two Christmas seasons. Christmas '08 was spent in the NICU with our tiny love in her isolation room that we decorated with a little fiber optic tree from Wal-Mart. And, last year, we excitedly picked out a beautiful tree...only to find out that Whitney's sitter was allergic to it. Thus, we moved the real tree to the back porch and put lights on our artificial decorative ficus tree. :) Even though the last two Christmases have been slightly untraditional in ways, they were so incredibly special. They really taught me that it's not about the location and things...it's about the hearts around you. I think this time of year makes us reflect on that even more. I am reminded by others who are sick and hurting at this time, how precious every day and every memory is. So, when Whitney brings me "Christmas in the Manger" for the 12th time today, I am delighted to read it again. I owe it to Him. :)