Beginning of Wonder

"Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. " -Ray Bradbury

Do you know, what was the first thing that made you stare in wonder and amazement as a child?  I mean, probably the very first thing was your mother's face.  But as a more sentient child, what brought awe and wonder into your life?  Entering a church?  Seeing a sunset?  Could be.

I can tell you what it is for Maeve.  It's the Christmas tree.

She has waved 'hello' to trees, any tree, since she started waving; she's always been a tree person.  I thought maybe she had a little Ent blood, between her love of trees and how tall she's getting.  Although she's not nearly slow enough to be an Ent, but I digress.

Our first Christmas tree, and my grandmother's, held her gaze in awe for a whole month.  She looked at Dad like he was Benedict Arnold when he took our first tree down in January.  Even though we fenced off our tree to her (as she had just learned to pull herself up) that year, she still adored it in rapt baby wonder.

Last year, I think the tree was the one thing about Christmas that she remembered from the year before and joyously pointed out Christmas trees wherever we wandered.  She absolutely loved our tree, despite how we kept it in the pack n play, and spent another year saying Hi to it at every opportunity. 

We then spent the better part of a year playing "Christmas tree" every time we went to the park.  She would make a pile of wood chips, call it a Christmas tree, then proceed to decorate it with "bubs" (bulbs) which also happened to be wood chips.  I have a great video of this, but Blogger is not letting me upload it today, so maybe I'll try again later.

And now, here it is, Christmastime again.  Maeve's eyes got big as Daddy took our new, bigger Christmas tree out of the box and started assembling it.  So far, she has fed it tea from her teacups, pretended to hang ornaments on it (we're waiting till December for ornaments), and touched the lights to see how they change the color of her hands.  She greets it every morning, and says goodnight to it before naps and bed.  I feel like the tree is an actual part of our family at this point, like I should set him a place at the table.