Christmas and Drew

We had visitors from Albuquerque for Christmas (my mom and stepdad, affectionately called Gommie and PaLo). Before I share a couple photos from their visit, you have to first meet Drew. He's being taken down now, but he was such a good tree we have to share his tall tale. So, it was the 20th of December, and we still didn't have our Christmas tree. That's highly unusual for us; we usually have our tree the first or second week of December, at the latest. We also usually get our noble fir at Target, but they were sold out. So, off to one of the Oregon tree farm lots we went. They still had some beautiful trees, all much taller than we can fit in front of our window.

The nice young woman (this means she was probably in her early thirties) was standing next to one tall tree, watching me look around while contentedly petting the tree's branches. I asked her what part of Oregon the trees came from (Willamette Valley) and we got talking about Oregon, the tree farmer (a family friend of hers), and all the different types of trees they grow. Then she asked me if I wouldn't like the tree she was standing next to, but, wow, it was over 9 feet tall. She grows very fond of the trees, especially the tallest ones, and names each of them. She decided ours would be a good home for this particular tree, the one she liked to pet, and she really didn't want him left over. She gave me the price I would've paid for a much shorter tree (which I guess is the advantage of getting your tree late). She had named this particular tree Drew.

As I was paying, and while Gunner and the tree lot guy were trying to stuff Drew into the back of the Yukon, she mentioned that she was a helicopter pilot in Oregon, which of course led to Chris. She knew all of the Oregon National Guard pilots over in Iraq and asked if she could add Chris to her prayer list. I realized later I didn't even get her name.

It was definitely not the usual Christmas tree shopping experience - more like adopting a very tall puppy. Here he is after Christmas morning, having done a mah-velous job of holding many gifts in his branches and sheltering the others underneath.

We rearranged the entire living room to make room for him. Thank goodness we had help from Matthew Workman getting the lights, and angel and ornaments on the top half.

Speaking of the Workman's, we were all invited to celebrate the Christmas Eve feast with them and it was just wonderful. Janet's mom, Vera Lawson, was visiting from Montana this year. My mom had a lovely time talking to Vera about her childhood memories of summer visits to the family cattle ranch in Big Timber.

A highlight for Gunner was taking Gommie and PaLo out to his favorite target shooting spot and shooting for the first time with PaLo, an expert hunter in former days.

Time with friends, time with family. It all helped us celebrate Christmas without our beloved Christopher Michael/Poppy.

Christ is Born! Glorify Him!