Oh, Christmas tree

"The best Christmas trees come very close to exceeding nature."

Andy Rooney 

The weekend clicked by in a rush and most of Saturday was spent hauling a Christmas tree home from the hardware store and then pulling the decoration boxes down the trap door from the attic.  Among the many things to be thankful for, everything was dry up there after weeks of pounding rain on our 30-year old roof.  I spent the rest of the day decorating, and then cleaning up after decorating.

We showed more restraint this year. It's 20 bucks for a sheared Douglas fir any size at the Mclendon's lot, and out of natural greed we gravitate toward the monsters and cram them in the corner of the living room.  Our tree is slightly smaller than usual and we like it better--easier to decorate, easier to live with, and John had it in the stand in no time at all. And hopefully a third less dry needles to fall on the rug in the next 3 weeks.

On Saturday afternoon I enjoyed chatting on the phone with our friends in Missoula.They finally have fresh snow, we have more rain. Our mountains are getting hammered, and the ski areas are open.  Mt. Baker claims they have the most snow in North American right now with 160 inches. 80 inches piled up in the last seven days.

The major mountain passes look like this, which makes you wonder who has the energy and guts to drive up there just to ski.  Thousands of people, I suppose.  It was a better Sunday to stay inside, enjoy the Seahawks thrashing the Cardinals and have our delayed Thanksgiving dinner with Dave and "Lucy."

This was the first turkey cooked in my new convection oven, and everyone gave it thumbs up.