Santa visits the city

When I was little, Santa used to drive around our town the weekend before Christmas on a firetruck. (This became especially amusing as I got older and realized that the firefighter next door was Santa, and they always stopped on our street because Santa needed a bathroom break.)

These days, I live across the street from the hospital.

So I'd been idly wondering if I'd even notice if the local fire department did the Santa thing, because I'm so used to the sirens. After all, one vehicle with a siren going by wasn't going to stand out.

Well, I just found out how to tell the difference--when Santa comes by here on a firetruck, he does so escorted by four police cars, two ambulances, several pick up trucks with flatbeds full of what looked like toy drive donations, a bunch of civilian cars with their emergency flashers on, and a biker parade.

Santa's badass.

Oh Tannenbaum

I think this may actually be the prettiest Christmas tree we've ever had. A little more expensive than I'd wanted to go, but there wasn't a lot of choices in the size range I was looking for. And it's just a perfect tree.

While putting on the lights, I discovered quite a lot of dead deciduous leaves of various species tucked in by the trunk. When I pulled out a particularly big handful, I discovered it was in fact a bird's nest. It was really cool and I kind of wanted to keep it on the tree, but Chuckro pointed out it was probably well soaked in bird shit. So I threw it out. A fun little discovery, though.