The Maunu Family at their Christmas Tree Lot off of Lombard Street in North Portland

For many years Juan and I have made the trek to the same Christmas tree lot. It's actually just a few blocks from our house. But the truth is I would go anywhere for one of these trees. Owned and operated by the Maunu family, I love this lot—and the family that operates it—so much that I even penned a little piece for my website about them a couple a years ago:

TREE ME: Not far from Interstate, up on North Drummond Street, right off of Lombard, is the sweetest Christmas tree lot in the city. The folks that run this joint (they also run the nearby print shop in a former Piggly Wiggly) are longtime locals, but seem to have been plucked straight off the set of "It's A Wonderful Life." Truly, I've never met a nicer group of folks. They not only go out to their farm nearly everyday to chop down fresh trees, if you don't see one you like, they pretty much will bring you one the very next day that is more to your liking. On top of all that, their prices are dirt cheap. And, they always remember our names, even though we only see them one time a year. Follow the really cool green and white tree signs and you'll find them. It's worth a trip no matter where you live in this city."

Well, a lot has changed for the Maunu family since last Christmas.

When we went to the lot this year we looked for the nice guy who always makes sure to pick out a special tree for just us. We didn't see Leonard Maunu any other time of the year, but he was always there for us at Christmas time. He was part of our tradition. When I saw the look on his brother face, I knew something had happened. That's when Dick told us that Leonard had died. The weird thing was when Leonard had died; it was just two days before Christmas last year. He was only 52.  I really have never met a sweeter, more gentle man and Dick said Leonard loved nothing more than working at the tree lot each and every year.

We couldn't buy our tree that day, it was just too hard. But we made sure to come back the next day, and Dick and his sons, Neil and David, had made sure to pick out probably the best tree we've ever had the chance to trim. The family is going to continue the tree biz and we will definitely support them. I can't believe we'll never see Leonard again, but at least we will have one of his trees.

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