Decorating the Christmas Tree With My Son

A couple of days ago, I went up north, which is part of my usual weekly routine, at least a couple of times on a typical week.

Lately, however, my time with my son has been limited because I have been working to try and clear the old house, the one that my parents, my brother and I used to live in. More recently, my son and his mom (my ex-wife) used to live there, as well.

We have gotten some chances to spend some decent time together, but it feels like a relative rarity. On Wednesday, however, I decided to change that.

Taking a break from the work at the house - and I felt, and still feel, that it had been a good, solid day of work - I went down to the apartment in Butler, which is perhaps a ten to fifteen minute drive. This was maybe a little after three or so in the afternoon. He was out of school by then, and it would be good to finally get a chance to spend some quality time together.

So we took a walk around nearby Apshawa Lake, and then had dinner together. After that, we went back to the apartment, and I showed him the decorations that I had gotten for the tree. Some new, some old. 

Then, we went to work decorating the small tree. It is maybe about one meter or three feet, tall, give or take. Not the biggest tree, but easy to store, and obviously not difficult to put up. We hoisted it on top of a box, and he actually fixed the lights, which were not fully working initially. It was a matter of those lights working, then straightening out the branches, and putting tinsel and ornaments (they had to be light) and a few other things in and around the tree. Little by little, this little corner of the place started to actually look quite nice.

My girlfriend and I had already decorated our tree. It came on a mutual day off, and to my surprise, this was actually before Thanksgiving, which meant that my son was not there. In the past, sometimes he had helped decorate the Christmas tree at Hillsborough, which I always feel is a nice holiday tradition. Since we did not get that chance this year, this felt like a nice replacement. And hoisted on top of the box (which you can more or less make out in the picture), the tree was almost at eye level, so it felt better than it's actual height might suggest.

In short, it felt like a good day. We both dragged our feet a bit after that. It felt like it might be nice to have some hot chocolate, and so we did. I knew that I had to get back to the house and finish the work for the night, and that he had to get back upstairs and continue doing his homework and other schoolwork. But we both just sat there, enjoying the perfect lighting of the tree, which actually looked quite nice and tranquil with the lights turned out.

Eventually, we both did return to what we needed to do. I hugged him, then he went upstairs, and I turned out the lights and went back to the house. But it felt like we had gotten some good, quality time in together. And I was especially pleased that we did some work decorating a tree, and that it had come out as nicely as it had.

Sometimes, you have to take time out and appreciate the small things. And this was one of those times that felt special, so it seemed like a good idea to share it here. 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!