11:04 p.m. The most profound, most beautiful night of the year. No matter who you are, or what your faith, you are touched by this night.

We have achieved the longed-for tree, but just barely. It was a close call today, and I've got to make a mental note not to wait until Christmas eve to buy our tree ever again. And good, old fashioned hondling on a Christmas tree lot is not always the wisest course of action.

We ended up seeing a whole lot of southern California today, by default. We spun out in the early afternoon for a quick trip literally down the street to grab the tree and get right back so that I could decorate it and get on with the celebrations and the festivities.

Odd, but the big huge lot full of cut trees and waving banners was suddenly barren and empty, with nary a bough or a branch of pine to be seen. Carefully swept, gates locked, a forest had suddenly, overnight, reverted to an empty lot. Gee.

So we drove on, to the biggest tree emporium within a many-mile radius and sure enough, there were trees enough and they were fine, but they were very expensive and very reluctant to negotiate even though -- and we all knew this, wink wink -- in just a few more hours, we're looking, to put it bluntly, at kindling and mulch.

So we quite righteously gathered our wits and said thanks but no thanks and decided to shop around for a better buy, a bargain on Christmas eve.

Sure the streets were impossibly crowded. And sure the lowering sun is the most blinding ball of distraction a person can ever imagine encountering through a windshield. And yes, it was becoming odder and odder that every single Christmas tree establishment was no longer established. Many red and white flapping banners were waving over many, many empty lots.

It only took us a couple of hours to turn around. You would have thought there was one tree, one dear tree to be had in all of Beverly Hills or West Hollywood, but no -- all the trees were now safely behind glass being lovingly burdened with expensive ornamentation and gee gaws.

The only thing worse than going back to the rip-off trees-for-sale place would be to go back to the rip-off trees-for-sale place and find it closed. So we fought the even more congested traffic in the opposite direction and the even bigger and more orange hot sun all the way back to where we started when we thought the world was full of trees among which we would wander and carefully choose.

The good news is that the stand is included and if we bring it back next year, we'll get an $11 discount.

And more important, I had my own private demonstration of what it might have been like lo those 2.000 or so years ago when a very pregnant lady and her long suffering husband tried to find a place that was open. I will decorate my tree tonight in tribute to all wandering women and the husbands who accompany them with patience and good grace.

There truly are blessings and saints among us.