Ornament

I'm thinking back to that day a few weeks ago when we decorated our Christmas tree.  Carefully packed boxes of sparkling things came in from the cold garage and began to emerge from their long sleep.  Every year we say we will count the ornaments as they go on.  And every year, when all five of us are hanging and decorating we get so involved that we begin to lose track.  We get up to fifty or so and nobody notices that we have lost count until it's too late.

We tried again this year.  Even though years of experience told me how the story would end.  We began to count anyway and just like every time before, we got to the end and we realized we were having so much fun that we forgot to count the ornaments.  We stepped back and look at the finished tree and remarked about how full it is.  How beautiful.  How each year we get so many new ornaments and somehow we find room for them on a tree that is already so full.  So.  Full.

Somehow we make room.

I wish this for you.  In your life.  That as you amass your blessings, you honor the simple act of trying to count, but get so busy enjoying each one that you lose track.  That you notice how each year you get so many new blessings and somehow you find room for them in a life that is already so full.

And act accordingly.




















***A note from Susan, the photographer.

I was thinking a lot about what an ornament is the past week and something occurred to me.  An ornament takes something ordinary, like an evergreen tree or a plain package, and makes it beautiful.  Sometimes you don't realize the potential beauty of an object until you adorn it with something special.  I have walked past this statue several times a day, every day for almost a year now and never realized how beautiful it was until there was a dusting of snow on it.  Snow was its ornament and it looked so lovely that it made me stop and photograph something that had always been ordinary.  Until now.