And Heaven and Nature Sing

That's a little clip-on bird ornament, in case you're scratching your head.

I'm gonna be honest here. Christmas is not all candy canes and mistletoe for me. It is hard. I miss my mom in every carol, every cookie we don't bake together, every mint M&M that I will never dig greedily from the candy dish on the sofa table when I come into her cider-scented house. In fact, this is the first Christmas in the four without her that I have even bothered to decorate beyond a tiny table-top tree.

But we're staying in Raleigh this Christmas, and I decided I was ready to make our own family traditions. When we returned to NC after Thanksgiving, we packed up the car with the ornaments and stockings and lights and tree stand that we had packed away at Les's parents' house. So I had the loot. There was just one problem: No space for a tree.

Ok, actually, there were 2 problems. No space for a tree, AND I felt conflicted about the eternal "Real vs. Fake" Christmas Tree Debate.  A live tree may be greener overall, but I still cringed a bit at the thought (and expense, and mess, and the hassle of having to bolt our loveseat to the ceiling to make room) of squeezing a tree into our little apartment.

So I'm finally ready to be festive, but couldn't quite go so far as to buy a tree.

What's a girl to do?

Well, a crafty girl marches out into the back yard (We live in NC! We have a yard!) and drags a fallen branch over to her deck, slaps down some scrap cardboard, and spray paints that sucker white. So now I have a Big White Stick! Perfect. The Christmas Stick gets plunked into a tall white ceramic vase with some white tissue paper crammed in to keep it upright and Auggie-proof. Then it gets wrapped with white lights and adorned with all the bird ornaments I had stashed away.

You see, 5 years ago, Mom and I decided to pillage Target on the Day After Christmas. I pushed her around in her wheelchair as she clutched a basket in her lap. I had decided I needed some of my own ornaments, and I had a vision. A theme, if you will. "Let Heaven and Nature Sing!". Only animal and bird ornaments, with red and gold do-dads mixed in. Some order to my Christmas Chaos. So, I loaded her up with a couple dozen clip-on birds, red and gold glass spheres, and faux-berry garlands.  And that Christmas, I convinced my then-roommate to get a ridiculously big tree and I festooned it with birds, berries, and balls. It was glorious.

And so this year, Les and I have The Christmas Stick. I love it. And it inspired me to just rock on with the bird theme.  Birds and Words:

Our mantel birds (who perch there all year) were joined by a tiny poinsettia and a canvas wrapped with burlap and some stick-on letters.

Some hand-felted "snow birds" that I bought on etsy a couple of years ago hang out with a little penguin figurine that Mom gave me in a stocking a zillion years ago. Chillin' with the NOEL letters.

Ok, I know this is crazy, but for some reason I thought that because it never really got cold in North Carolina, there wouldn't be any cardinals here. That made me really sad when we first moved, but guess what? They are everywhere. I love them. They are just harder to see when there is no snow!

Our Christmas mantel. A little crowded, but totally awesome. 

There's even a funny little bird in our Nativity: check out the silly chicken on Joseph's back! I can't imagine a creche without some animals. Les and I bought this one in Portugal right after we got engaged. I love it. It is made out of this sandy clay stuff. And the calf and the donkey look like they are singing.

Joy to the World, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her king
Let every heart prepare Him room
And Heaven and Nature Sing

Let my mom, in heaven, sing
Let all the animals and birds, and trees and stars, all of God's creation, sing His praise

They do a better job of it than we do sometimes, don't they?