After reading 's post, I realized that I have never been comfortable with the idea of cutting down a tree just to use it as a decoration for a few days or weeks...when my sambandhis came over to India in 2000, I hunted and found a sparse, somewhat sad-looking conifer in a pot and decorated that....I knew they didn't like having an artificial one, and I didn't like a dead one, so that was the way I dealt with it....they were too polite to make the comparisons with the lush tree they would have had at home, and accepted the spirit of my having a Christmas tree and decorations for them.

Here’s 's entry, which I enjoyed SO very much...

http://c-and-h.livejournal.com/134041.html

I seem to be waking up at about 5.30 am no matter where I am..and since we got back late last night and it is a Monday morning, I am now organizing packed lunch for DnA.

While I was trying to figure out Flickr on Linux and why the “uploadr” wouldn’t work, I noticed…that I could now EMAIL my pics to Flickr!!Wow! So here come the pictures of some birds that I took at St Louis Zoo, on the 14th of December…