My favorite part of Christmas decorating is the tree. I love the look of a tree with lights in the dark of the living room. Just beautiful! In the craziness of the end of the semester, the Christmas festivities, the month of birthdays (my brother-in-law, Noah’s, mine, and my Dad’s), I try to make a point to steal away and sit in the dark by the lit Christmas tree. I love those moments when I am the last to go to bed. As I walk through the quiet house, turning off the lights, making sure the doors are locked, I stop before walking upstairs to bed. In the stillness it is just me, God, the hush of midnight, and the lit Christmas tree. It is a quiet time to literally just be still…to know that He is God…to find beauty in simplicity…and to be.

I like it so much that it makes me kind of sad when the tree comes down after Christmas. The days are still short, the nights are still long, and the quiet lights of Christmas are gone. That’s why last year I bought an artificial tree on clearance at Menard’s. I have dubbed it “The Snowmas Tree.” It goes up when the Christmas tree goes up and stays until the BIG THAW in March or April. It is covered with snowflake and snowmen ornaments and I turn on the lights every evening throughout the winter. Our Christmas tree resides in the living room, but the Snowmas tree is in the family room. This way I get my lighted tree fix throughout the bleak midwinter.

On Thursday morning the boys had left for school, Robert was still asleep, and I was eating my bowl of cereal. I usually eat in the breakfast nook (natch). However, I decided that since the house was quiet and it was just at sunrise that I would turn on the tree lights in the living room and sit in one of the Queen Anne chairs by the tree to eat. I was looking out of our large windows in the back yard watching this one fat squirrel run up and down a tree in our yard. I noticed something large and white fluttering to the right at the edge of my peripheral vision. It was a huge, beautiful barred owl and it decided to rest right on the front branch of the tree I had been watching. It stared at me, while I stared at it. It turned its head all the way around, then turned back to look at me again. I was thrilled and delighted. I love owls! The cherry on top is that I was in a sorority in college, Chi Omega, and our mascot was an owl. Plus, they are just cool, beautiful, and mysterious creatures. I had seen owls at zoos and in raptor demonstrations before. I even got to hold and pet one this summer, along with one of my sorority sisters at an expo thing this summer during our high school reunion. However, I had never seen one spontaneously in the wild.

Kelly and me this summer with, ironically, a barred owl named Pumpkin. His feathers were so soft , they were like fur.

I watched the owl in silence for about 5 minutes and then I called Robert to come downstairs and get his camera since he is one of our two resident photographers. He snapped several pictures and then the owl flew off into the distance. Robert ended up seeing him two more times during the day. I hope he lives in the woods behind us and that this is just the first of many sightings. It absolutely made me day!! And just think…if I hadn’t taken time to pause and sit quietly by the Christmas tree, I would have missed this very special Christmas visitor. Advent is a time of hope and a time of waiting. I hope that you’ll take some time this season to sit quietly by your lit tree, alone in the dark, and ponder this season of hope and wonder.

P.S., Melanie, one of my friends from college, just started a blog and wrote a similar post about her love of Christmas lights. Be sure to check her blog, Insight of Grace, out.