The little white tree that saved the day

Once upon a time, Courtney was supposed to be in her new house before Christmas.  Because she had been told this many, many times by the people at her lender's office, she was reassured by the knowledge.

She proceeded to pack Christmas.

Her tree (nope, there was no tree up in the Merrill household all through December), her decorations, all of the many gifts and holiday party supplies.

Everything.

Also, on the morning that they were supposed to close on their new home, Courtney had her children take all of their clothes out of their closet and dresser drawers and pack them all into giant garbage sacks (the choice of professional movers).

The kitchen closely resembled Old Mother Hubbard's, the rooms were pretty much empty, the garage was full of boxes.

Orrin and Courtney signed the papers.

Everything was perfectly perfect.

But, alas, people are dumb and the loan didn't fund that day.

That day happened to be a Friday.  Titles company are not open on weekends.  And Orrin happened to have taken the entire weekend off to move us.

So we had to wait until Monday to get the keys to our house.

And Orrin has to work through Friday.

We didn't get the house in time for Christmas. 

You cannot even begin to imagine the weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth that went on in this family (by me).

Orrin let me cry and throw my fit.  Then he said, "Why don't we set up the Christmas tree?"

He is ever-so-wise.

So we spent our night setting up our new itty-bitty white tree while watching It's A Wonderful Life.  You cannot feel bad for yourself while watching Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed live in Bedford Falls.  An impossibility!

Staring at those softly glowing lights, I realized that it just didn't matter.  We will get the house.  Everything will not play out the way I had planned (does it ever?).  But it will play out.  The kids do not care if Christmas is here or there, as long as it is Christmas.  And everything will be ok. 

In the morning, Wy-fi placed the star upon the highest bough (his turn!).

And he did an awesome job.

He was rather impressed.

So, this sparkling little tree saved me from a weekend full of self pity.

Thank you, my little white tree.