**The Ansel Adam tree**

I took this picture and it filled me with memories of when the tree looked different. In years prior, there would be a garden train underneath, circling the tree in a big oval swoop. Presents would be stacked inside and outside the oval.

The kids would bring up the wooden trail set and and build it over all the presents using the wrapped boxes as the foundation for bridges. The little wooden tracks would wind between the presents. All the little wooden accessories, tree, people and the like would be stacked around all the tree. Finally strategically placed among all this mayhem would be an impressive collection of Dicken's Village ceramic light buildings. The scale of everything was wrong, the floor was covered with with stuff and for the several weeks before Christmas that space was the focus of hours of imaginative play (and maybe a little present snooping, although this cannot be confirmed).