The Outback Christmas Tree & Kangaroo Farm: A holiday destination

Save yourself airfare and time, mate. You can pick up a Christmas tree and commune with the kangaroos just an hour from Seattle at The Outback Christmas Tree & Kangaroo Farm in Arlington.

This unusual destination is a must for families and animal lovers. Seven days a week from 9 a.m. until dusk you can cut down your own Christmas tree from the collection of noble firs, Fraser firs, and grand firs ($25-$55 plus free tree bundling service). Afterward, hang around the campfire ring sipping complimentary hot cocoa and apple cider while munching on candy canes. You can even get some of your Christmas shopping done at the log cabin -- it's filled with Christmas crafts, stuffed animals and other gifts. Go on Saturday and Sunday so you can pet and feed the animals during the guided tours at 2 p.m.

Ray and Joey Strom are the welcoming and patient hosts at this six-acre spread, home to more than 40 kangaroos, wallabies and wallaroos; Patagonian cavies; ringtail lemurs; turkeys; parrots; peacocks; pot-bellied pigs; llamas and alpacas; pygmy goats; donkeys; and a mini horse named Oreo. At the 2 p.m. tour, for $6.50 ($5.50 for children), you get bits of bread and food pellets as well as an informed, 40-minute tour through the pens of these affable animals with whimsical names. Bill and Monica are two nuzzling emus and the pot-bellied pigs are Spamala Lee and Bacon Bits. Fowl have the run of the place including Mr. Feathers the turkey, Daffy the Muscovy duck and showy peacocks.

The Stroms also raise baby 'roos. "We got one and it escalated from there," says Ray Strom, who slowly added to the menagerie they now have. Babies are hand-raised in playpens in the Stroms' home and fed every four hours with bottles. There's usually a baby 'roo swaddled like an infant that guests can hold.

Christmas trees are available through Christmas Eve.

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