The Number Field

On Saturday evening we finally got a Christmas tree. We had been running some errands and Elena fell asleep in her car seat, so we didn't feel an obligation to wander through the tree wonderland at Home Depot. Instead, we noticed that Lowe's had just a few trees outside the garden section. I got out to take a look while Jenny stayed with Elena, and found a sign saying that they had a 50 percent discount, so we snapped one up. I managed to find one that wasn't too big--it mostly fit inside the trunk of our compact car, so we didn't have to try to put down the back seat to squeeze it in.

A deeply discounted tree is likely to be one that came from the farm a long time ago. Even after having its trunk trimmed, ours won't absorb the water we put in the tree stand, so it already looks droopy. That's okay because we don't need it to last very long, and it will definitely make it until Friday. Elena likes the tree an appropriate amount, by which I mean that she likes to look at it, but hasn't tried to pull it down yet. Jewel probably enjoys the tree the most. Sometimes she likes to hide behind it and pretend she's in the primeval forest. Other times she plays with the ornaments, including a low hanging bell that she can ring by hitting it with her paw.

In an after-Christmas sale two years ago we bought a red star for a tree topper, but none of our other ornaments match; they're mostly purple and silver, from Leisa's wedding four years ago * . We got the red topper because we couldn't find any silver ones, and we figured it would be easy to paint it. It was so easy that we completely forgot about it. Maybe I should go do something about it right now; if I'm lucky, Jenny won't read this until after I'm done.

Update: Done.

* Congratulations, Sam and Leisa. It's hard to believe it's already been four years! Is this the first year since your wedding that you had snow for your anniversary?