After waiting since December 5 (the first weekend in Dec. when we'd have ordinarily chosen our tree) to have everyone together to choose it, we finally got it yesterday afternoon and the irony is that we had 2 children missing when we got it! A funny and unexpected benefit was that the tree place sold any tree for $43.85 + tax but when we chose ours (maybe because it's so late in the month?) the guy said to Doug "$40 even". Thank you! The tree still needs our silver pine cones that I made about 20 years ago (collected pine cones during a mountain trip and I sprayed them silver and glued looped cord to them) but we can't find them. A project for tomorrow – pine cone hunt in the garage.

Here's Kendall gabbing on the phone to her friend Chloe while shaking one of her gifts. Kendall's last finals were today and she's still lounging about in her uniform.

Kendall shakes gift