The girls were assembling the used three-and-a-half foot Christmas tree Julie had purchased back in October. I was saying to the girls how sad it was that we had didn’t have any of our ornaments from home. I started to reminisce about some of our favorites: the little antique red ball, the sparkley orange slice, and of course the glass pickle.

The girls were just starting to get a little sad, when Julie called them into our bedroom area because she needed their help with something or other.

The girls walked around the big wardrobe that doubles as a room divider and there laid out on the bed were some of their favorite ornaments from home including the red ball, the orange slice, and the glass pickle. The girls started jumping up and down.

Also laid out on the bed where their Christmas stockings.

Last January, eight months before we were to leave for China, as we were packing up the Christmas decorations, Julie had the where-with-all to set aside a few of the girls’ favorite Christmas things in anticipation of packing them and bringing them to China with us.

Julie is such a good mommy.

-Jack