Oh Christmas Tree

Decorating the Christmas Tree

How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? Maybe the question should be, What items do you hang upon your Christmas Tree? What are your favorite things to place upon your Christmas Tree?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Hv9YmhGpw

Christopher & I share a Christmas Tradition that many of you may also have in your home. Every year we select a Christmas Ornament that represents a special Moment we shared that year. We had this tradition from the time we first started dating and selected our "First Christmas Together' Ornament from the Hallmark store. The year we got married we purchased a Christmas Ornament of a Hawaiian Couple to represent our wedding in Hawaii. In 2003 we purchased our first home together and bought a set of keys to represent the day before Thanksgiving when we got our house keys, and spent all of Thanksgiving Eve Night preparing a surprise Thanksgiving Dinner at our new home -- family thought they were just stopping by a friend's house to pick up extra chairs when they discovered the new house was our house! There are a couple of handmade Christmas Ornaments that I made as a child hanging up next to my child's hand-made Christmas Ornaments. There is a school picture of Christopher as a young boy, a Kindergartener, the same age Carissa is now, that is glued to a paper Christmas Ornament. There is a Military Ornament Representing all of our service men and women in the armed forces. There is this adorable Hallmark Christmas Ornament with a rooster w/classes reading a green book titled Parent's to Be with a Momma hen sitting on top of one egg, knitting waiting for her egg to hatch (we waited 12 years, 144 months for our egg to hatch! -- which was well worth the wait. Then during my pregnancy I had a miscarriage that GOD transformed into a Miracle when He saved Carissa and knit her so safely & perfectly that the doc. was completely shocked that "there was no sign of the separation, no scar tissue, nothing as if it never happened"), then last, but certainly not least two very special Christmas Ornaments, a white baby bootie with a pink flower & ribbon, and a white little bear with a pink blanket both ornaments read, Baby's First Christmas.

Those are some of my most favorite Christmas Ornaments because they represent the fond memories & blessings that each unique experience brought me. I also have Christmas Ornaments from Friends & Family. Grandma & Grandpa started purchasing a special Christmas Ornament for Carissa ever since she was born. Her second year she started ballet, so they got her a ballerina ornament. The third year they got her a Tinkerbell ornament, because she not only likes Tinkerbell, she is a tinker putting together all sort of cleaver projects, and finding new ways to utilize her toys & objects in ways no one else imagined. Last year she received a Cinderella ornament to to represent the beautiful blue Cinderella dress Grandma hand-made for her. I don't know what she will get this year? Maybe something representing Kindergarden? 

I am looking forward to what Carissa is going to make in her Kindergarden Class to hang on the tree this year. 

For Christopher and I we have been thinking what can represent this year for us? What we came up with was a book with the WOW logo on it. To see the new WOW logo, Click Here.

WOW represents many things for us. It started off being the acronym for Women of Worth the name of a Christian BookClub that I thought would be a great idea, but it appears that the Lord has even Greater Plans which He continues to reveal to us. I am excited to see what the Lord is going to do next!

While putting together the WOW BookClub the Lord placed in my heart the desire to start an 

Outreach Program to help children whose childhood, like my own, has been a living nightmare. GOD has taught me through His Amazing, Healing, Transforming Love that out of our darkest pain His Divine Purpose arises. Our Backstory is not a place of shame or inferiority, but a place that is transformed & testifies through Victory to His Glory. In other words, our Backstory is for His Glory!

What GOD teaches me I am compeled to share with others. My personal motto & life devotion is to Share It Forward!

If GOD has brought you through it, then there is no one better equipped than you to do something about it. 

GOD brought me the healing, He brought me the Purpose, He even gave me the name, Giving Dreams Wings, for our Outreach Ministry, yet I did not know exactly where to start, or in what direction to go. Some many needs & so many choices to make. Where do I begin?

Then one wonderful October Morning GOD placed the plans in Carissa's heart, and out of a Daughter's Dream to help others our first Giving Dreams Wings Outreach Program was created. As the saying goes, "And a child shall lead them."

Most certainly in one word to sum up this year would be WOW!