Two Christmas Trees and Two Dogs

Both trees are up in San Marcos now, which is the whole point of the last day of November. The white one gets the vintage glass — striped balls, the plastic starbursts, silver bead garland — plus the red felt letters strung through the branches spelling MERRY CHRISTMAS, which took some rearranging so the words read in order. It stands in the galvanized bucket stamped North Pole Electric Co., with a poinsettia parked in front.

The flocked tree by the fireplace went the other direction: green and white glass, wood bead garland, the fur skirt, and presents already wrapped underneath.

Then the dogs. The little one held a sit under the branches by himself for a while, ears out sideways. Getting both of them to sit at the same time took longer — one would break the second the other settled, and there was a stretch where they both stared off at something across the room. Eventually they sat side by side in front of the green ornaments, one with his tongue out, and that was as good as it was going to get.