Maria doesn’t like to get a lot of presents, but the dogs do like to get a lot of presents. I got them each a neat kind of bone, some peanut butter stuffed into a roll-shaped rawhide.

When I say, “come her, dogs,” they understand they are going to get something, and they come running, focused eagerly on me. That’s the best way to get dogs to look into a camera lens.

The dogs always have the Christmas spirit.

They were very happy, and I wished Red and Fate and Bud a Merry Christmas. I brought some Alfalfa dust out to the pasture for the donkeys and the sheep, they will graze on it all day.

And I did give Maria a gift, although I didn’t call it that, I gave her a book called “Life In The Sloth Lane” by Lucy Cooke. She had two friends over yesterday, Susan and Jackie, and they devoured the book, gasping at the adorable photographs and going on their phones to pull up sloth videos.

She could not have been happier.