What's Christmas Without the Tree?

The excitement at the cabin continued when your Grandparents arrived. We relaxed for their first evening with us but, the next morning, it was back to work when we collectively realized, "It's two days before Christmas and we have no tree!"
There was a small pine tree nearby in the forest that had died earlier that Fall so we didn't have to go far, and didn't have to cut any trees, in order to get our Christmas tree. We set it up on the deck and began decorating. Even with the few decorations we had, it worked out well -- Lights and tinsel go a long way!
In the end, it had a bit of the Charlie Brown Christmas tree feel but, out there on the deck, in the kind of pitch black of night that we can only get at the cabin, the lit up tree, the lights along the deck railing, it all looked magical.
Santa must have seen those magical lights as, on Christmas Eve, we heard footsteps on the roof and on Christmas morning, we awoke to tapping by our door. Santa had obviously given up on going down the gas fireplace vent and had decided to knock instead.
It turns out the 'footsteps on the roof' were just huge pine cones falling from the canopy of tall, tall trees all around us and that the 'tapping by the door' was just a red-headed woodpecker (just like Woody!) trying to build a nest in the cabin wall. Presents? No presents. Santa had missed our lights. He had passed us by.
To avoid ending on this sad note, let's remind ourselves that every day is like Christmas in our home. You, Rai, get some new book or toy pretty much daily and we get the gift of joy that comes from you being in our lives every moment of every day.