My mom bought me several trains, some of them HO, alas (though I still have them)! She really enjoyed having trains around the tree at Christmas. So, when I left for grad school, I built a board with a loop and a spur and a bridge over a painted river. Then, I bought a Marx set, a duplicate of my first train. Over the next couple years, I bought a car or two to go along with it. Every year, she put it up under the living tree.
After I had moved back to the homestead to help take care of my parents, Mom spent too much time in nursing car facilities. One Christmas that she could not come home, we took a simple loop of track and her train along with Christmas dinner to visit. She was very happy to get to see her train run even though she wasn't home.
She has been gone over 15 years now (can that be possible?), but trains still go under the tree each year, and her train is carefully preserved and tended, waiting to see what sort of children my son has.
