Preparing for the Messiah

Day after Thanksgiving- legitimate to look like Christmas now.
So, as soon as Matt and Karissa were out the door on their way back to law school, I was in the closet, pulling out Christmas decorations. I am pretty sure my epitaph will read:
Let it never be said moss grew under this one's feet.

Everything with a hint of orange, ywllow, or brown went in the wash or the closet. Reds and greens were piled in a heap on the floor. Within three hours, Thanksgiving was obliterated and Christmas was coming. With one sad exception. I topped my gorgeous fully decorated tree with the star, turned on the switch and the star didn't light. And the crafty manufacturers made it in such a way that you can't get in it to change the bulb without breaking it. Materialistic creeps! Ruining my Christmas! So Arvo went out and got me an angel, a beautiful angel with white lights that match the white lights and crystal ornaments on my tree. However, the hole in the angel to slip her atop the tree is the wrong size for my tree. I am sure this can be fixed, but for now, my tree is topless. This is not the image of Christmas I am going for at all.

I had never had a pretty accent for my mantel either, and after twenty years of living here with a shabbily adorned mantel, decided it was time to find a tasteful mantel decoration. Asherel came with me. This is our annual mother/daughter bonding time. We go to get a single Christmas decoration that we both agree upon. As you can imagine, this leads to very un-Christmasy arguments. This year, I wanted a pine swag for the mantel, and then whatever we could come up with to make it stand out.
"Should I get the prelit pine swag or plain? 6 ft. or 9 ft.? Berry or pine cone covered? Spruce or balsam? Snowcovered or rainbow?"
We surveyed our choices, and finally settled on the prelit 6 foot plain pine. Now to accessorize.
"How about ribbon?" I said.
"What will you do with ribbon?" asked Asherel.
"I don't know..." I said. I took her to a decorated tree in the store and showed her how they had crinkled fancy ribbon tastefully along the boughs. It was beautiful.
"Like that. We can do that."
So we headed to the ribbon section. There were at least 300 different ribbon choices. Some ribbon was $15 a yard! I found a remnant of silver ribbon for 70 cents a yard.
"How's this?"
"I like this better," she said, pointing to ribbon that was silver laced with sparkles of rainbow glitter. It was $1.20 a yard and I only needed 3 yards. Deal! We were ready to check out and hadn't had a single red faced blow up.
"What will you be doing with this?" asked the store clerk as she cut my ribbon.
I held out the pine swag, "I am going to tastefully crinkle it along this swag. That will be beautiful, right?"
She raised an eyebrow, "Sure."
"Good answer, Rudy," said her co-worker.
Of course, this made me suspicious that it might not be as beautiful as I hoped.

Still, we gathered our mantel decoration and headed home. I set it up, crinkled my ribbon and draped it tastefully across the pine swag, then plugged it in. The little white lights embedded in the pine sparkled and glinted with tiny specks of rainbow colors reflecting in the silver lacy ribbon. It was beautiful, at least in my eyes. I sat in the dark looking at my topless tree and my sparkle pined mantel for a long time.

Isaiah 28: 5
⁵ In that day the LORD Almighty
   will be a glorious crown,
a beautiful wreath
   for the remnant of his people.