Oh Christmas Tree, OOOOH CHRISTMAS TREE

Let me begin by saying that I have been known to exaggerate. I may be able to make a story a bit more interesting, so that it's going to invoke some sort of emotion, reaction, or outcome from those hearing the story I tell.

But, I tell the truth. Always the truth.

A few weeks ago, I told the truth, but exaggerated a tad.

I was teaching singing time in primary, which I am terrible at singing. Truth. I told the kids that, and they agreed that I was quite bad. REALLY bad. Truth. I told the kids that our family was no longer living in our home. Truth. I said we were living in a hotel. Truth. I told them our house exploded. Mild exaggeration. Some kids gasped. One kid's face (a cousin visiting our ward so he's never heard me tell stories before) looked so genuinely sad. (I ran with it, but there was a valid reason. Just keep reading. I'm NOT the devil.) Truth. I told them that our family wouldn't be able to put up a big Christmas tree in our hotel, but instead we would use these 2 little fake trees. Truth. I asked for their help by singing amazing, (to mask my voice), but I would choose the best singer that I saw during that verse, to add an ornament to our simple trees. This was all truth. I just needed them to buy into my sob story, so they would REALLY sing well. And that they did! Buy in and sing well.

Now that I've explained myself, imagine how I felt when my sugar called me later that night from helping with tithing settlement. He said, "Sooooo, Sister Williams is here with a LARGE 'Decorate a Tree Kit,' because her kids came home from primary so sad that we wouldn't have a CHRISTMAS tree this year. They just wanted to help out."

Ummm........

How freaking sweet are her kids? REALLY? Props to you Sister and Brother Williams! Those adorable kids bought my exaggerated sob story, they sang REALLY well, and THEN got their mom to put together a giant bag of arts and crafts stuff so we could make our own special Christmas tree.

I told you. I tell the truth. I just can create some sort emotion, reaction, or outcome from those who are hearing my stories. But always, the truth!

Tonight we finally made our tree. I cut 5 strips into all different sizes and had my babies put them in order from shortest in length to longest. (Good measurement activity & vocabulary builder)

On the back of the strips, I wrote the numbers 1-10, so they could check their work when they were done. Jack kept cheating and looking. Then measuring.

After we got them in the correct order, my babies then had to draw the number of ornaments that was written on the strips.

They had fun choosing the right strip to put their letters of their name on an ornament.

Jack - 4
Afton - 5
Westra - 6
Jocelyn - 7

"Mom, we can't do one for you and dad, because they both take 3 letters and I can't fit you both on there. Hope that's okay," explained Afton.

We made our Christmas tree with the simplest and cleanest supplies in this "Decorate a Tree Kit." Supplies we did NOT use were paint, real cranberries (I didn't see these when we first got the bag a few weeks ago - oops),  and glitter. Seriously glitter? Sister Williams is sweet, but a bit crazy if she thinks I'm going to bust out glitter in a hotel room. Ha, no way!

In ALL truth, this was a good activity for my babies to work on together. We talked about what Christmas is really about. About how it's okay that we don't have our giant real Christmas tree up this year. It's okay that we aren't in our home this year. It's okay because we will be together celebrating the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ and that's what's most important, this year and every year.

To be completely honest, I had this idea in my head a few weeks ago, but I kept secretly hoping that we would be back in our real home, by now and we could have our real tree up instead of an arts and craft one. Tonight I realized it didn't matter. This tree would be just as fabulous, and the kindness shown by the Williams family needed to be acknowledged and put to good use. Thank you for believing OUR sob story, and being so Christlike, showing love and compassion towards our family.

This Christmas tree is perfect! Truth. No exaggeration.