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When I got up this morning (having been rudely awakened at 5:30 AM by one of those "Microsoft Tech Support" scam calls), I found that The Tree had arrived in the house, along with more gifts to join those that
travelswithkuma and I wrapped yesterday. The wooden stand on which the tree sits was built by Lisa in 1998 to fit on a counter in the travel trailer, with the circular working model train track. Sitting on the track is an N-gauge Santa Fe locomotive, and it does work. A switch in the base allows you to run the lights, the train tracks, or both, and you can just make out the train controller (the small black box behind the tree to the left). Besides the string of lights, Lisa decorates the tree with origami cranes she made a few years ago.Lisa and were up much too early for a holiday. (I have both Friday and Monday off.) Actually, I think Lisa hadn't really slept much last night. We made a virtue of necessity and drove into Reno to deal with the last pre-holiday shopping. We first went to the Peppermill and had a non-weekend breakfast, using up most of the last of a gift card I'd received. We then dealt with the last of the shopping, by which time time was catching up to Lisa and we headed home, where she fell into bed and I took the rest of the day off. I'm quite glad not to be doing extensive travel at this time of the year, although I do continue to go out and wave to Amtrak when they go by. If I did have to travel, that would be the way I'd prefer to do it.