Small Is Good!

No Pagel Thanksgiving weekend would be complete without an excursion to the Hoffman Tree Farm. We made our annual trek to select the "perfect" tree on Friday during a small window of time when no one was working. You can click on the picture above to see a slide show of the selection and decoration of our tree. You can also click here to read about last years tree excursion!

Of course, no tree is "perfect." But each year we go on a quest to find just the "right" tree for our living room. Of course we never find the "perfect" tree, but that never stops us from trying! And this years quest brought us to a much smaller tree than we usually select. It's a wonderful tree in it's own right, just smaller. Of course the boys are always saying, "Let's get a bigger one." And Sharon and I are increasing saying, "No, let's get a smaller one."

This years tree measured in right at 6 feet. I think the real story is that we selected a smaller tree in honor of Erin, Jason's girl friend who was with us for a few days this past week. Erin has taught us that good things come in small packages. That the stature of a persons character isn't measured by their height. And that God in His creativity has designed a universe full of variety.

In fact God loves small things. He loves small beginnings, a small gate, small loaves and fish, faith as small as a mustard seed, and people who are faithful in small things. Americans love big things. We love big meals, big cars, big homes, big titles, and big events. In fact our national motto might well be, "Just biggy size it please!"

Which brings us back to our Christmas tree this year. It's rather small, but we love our tree. We selected it out of an entire nursery full of trees of every size and shape imaginable. And if we had to do it all over again, we would select this tree every time. For you see, we are learning that small is good!