Decorating the Tree

     This year was different tree decorating experience for me.  Instead of doing it completely by myself or with only Anna helping me, as I have for years. This year I didn't lift a finger!  Thanks to a bad case of tennis elbow, I stepped back and let the kids decorate it by themselves.  Well, nearly by themselves.  Dave put up the lights, and I couldn't resist doing a little repositioning the next day. 

They did really well, although it's a good thing I have a lot of unbreakable ornaments!  The twins kept dropping them while trying to get them on the tree.  The more fragile ones, Anna put on after the twins went to bed.

 

    Abriel, being the youngest, got to put the star on.  Since Samuel is older only by thirty minutes, he can do it next year.  That's the good and bad thing about being a twin.  You have to share your birth order position. 

 

    Anna's overseeing of the decorating reminded me of how my oldest sister, Elisha, used to dictate to her younger siblings just how the tree should be decorated.  Even to this day, I can't decorate the tree any other way.  A siblings lasting influence.