Dear Henry

Hey, we bought our first Christmas tree ever. Actually, we didn't buy it, but we tried. There is a great story here.

On Sunday, Mom and your brothers and I went to a holiday party that Dr. Shad has invited us to attend for the past few years. We've never been around, but this year we were in town so we went.

The party was a fundraiser for Georgetown's pediatric oncology/hematology department. They had a silent auction and some of the items were these neat Christmas trees that local designers decorated. One of the trees was called the "Comic Book Christmas Tree." Mom and I agreed that Hope for Henry should buy it and donate it to the clinic. I mean, how perfect is that.

Even though it was a really cool, no-one other than us bid on the tree. And though we had to leave about 10 minutes before the auction was going to be over, we felt pretty confident that we would get it. We even put instructions on it that it should be delivered directly to Georgetown the next day.

All week we were waiting for someone to call us and ask us for a credit card to pay for the tree, but no-one rang. So today I called a contact I found on the website for the event and they explained that someone else bought the tree.

I said there must have been a mistake. They said, na-ah, someone else got it and already paid for it. Huh?

But then they looked a little closer and explained that the person who bought it, had bought it for Laurie, otherwise known as Mom.

A couple of years ago I nominated Mom to be a Washington Woman of the Year, and she won that honor with a few other women who do good things in the community. The person who introduced Mom at the awards luncheon was a woman named Tammy Darvish.

Tammy is a very successful businesswoman who does so many, many good things here in Washington. Mom really admires her.

So, can you guess who bought the tree for Mom so Hope for Henry could donate it to the Lombardi clinic?

How about that for a Christmas miracle.

Tonight Mom and I dropped off some Wii games at the clinic and decided to check out the tree.



There are ornaments made out of superhero comic books hung all over the tree. The tree isn't real so they can store it each year and pull it out at Christmastime.

When we got home I took a picture of Michael's and Bill's backyard. Michael has outdone himself this year.