On the day after Thanksgiving, we traditionally lower the Christmas boxes from the attic and assemble the house for the holiday of holidays. After opening them, we invariably discover that we once again packed the advent candles with the rest of the decorations, subjecting them to the inferno of an entire summer in a southwest Texas loft. They emerged from the box in a unified state, a waxy representation of the symbolism of the celebration of the day which united God and man.

After an hour assembling the tree (yes, artificial) and another hour twiddling with lights (which worked just fine when they were packed 11 months prior), the tree is up and lit and ready to be trimmed. Our collection of ornaments is rather eclectic; a smattering of very nice pieces received as gifts, a half box of cheap globes purchased by a young married couple and more than a few handfuls of handcrafted trimmings from the next generation of Kings and Queens.

Some of these keepsakes are beautiful pieces of art while others are simply 'unique', like the celestial creature crafted from tissue paper and a coffee filter, lovingly christened 'the Angry Angel'. Yet each one contains precious memories from a day when the hands we hold today were much smaller.

Three of my favorite ornaments are simple paintings from a four year old Architect. They are from a church Christmas party held one cold Wednesday in rural Kansas. We had numerous stations for the kids to experience: games, story, craft, and snack. The Queen (May She Live Forever) and I were in charge of a group of 4th graders, moving them from station to station.

The painting station was a favorite with the kids. Someone had prepared salt & flour dough, cut out a forest of trees, stars, candy canes, bears and bells and baked them to a golden brown. The kids were provided with their choice of ornaments along with paints in various colors, brushes and smocks. (Yes, that word always reminds me of my favorite cartoon: Calvin and Hobbes.)

At the end of the evening, we exchanged our horde of 4th graders for our 4 year old. All the ornaments had been left on a table to dry so we went to pick those up. My painted candy cane was easy to locate with its bright red stripes. We then began turning over the other ornaments, looking for our son's name.

We started by looking at those ornaments which appeared to be painted by a young child; the ornaments with random splotches of color, but none of those were his. We then started looking at the prettier ornaments, thinking that he might be unusually gifted in the artistic realm. This search method also failed to find any of his ornaments – after all he is the Architect, not the Artist.

At this point we began a systematic search, turning over each ornament, row by row until we found the three that he had painted. They are pictured below:

He did a great job covering them with paint - black paint. I'm sure we will never know why he chose black over the other available colors for all of his ornaments, but every year as we trim the tree, we chuckle as we hang the black star, bell and bear on the artificially evergreen limbs.

Merry Christmas! We hope this holiday season proves beneficial for your heart and for your soul.