Oh Boy Scout Tree

This will be Isaac's fourth Christmas, and we have gotten Christmas trees for two of those, both here in Newark. Last time, we had good luck (and good community karma) buying our tree from a local boy scout troop that sets up shop in a grassy lot less than a mile from our house. Yesterday, with it being officially Christmas season now, we took advantage of our visiting babysitters and their Big Purple Van to help out the scouts once more.




How many O'Neal boys does it take to put up a Christmas tree?



Once Isaac and Jacob found out they couldn't touch any of those shiny things going on the tree -- what a bummer! -- it became much more fun to play in the box from whence the shiny things came.



I did get to have my fun showing them our special ornaments and telling them the stories behind them.



Here, I'm holding up a star with a baby's head dressed up for winter. We have two of these; they each have one of the boys' names written in red on the star. Mamaw gave us these for Christmas last year. Isaac is holding a red airplane ornament, the ornament he picked out for our tree two years ago. It's my plan to make a tradition for the boys out of this -- every year, each of them picks out a special new ornament to add to our tree.