When Christmas Trees Attack

When I was a kid growing up we didn't celebrate holidays because of religious reasons. My family went to Disney World instead. As an adult I celebrate a few of the holidays in my own way but I really have nothing to compare them too.

To me putting a tree inside MY house and dressing it up is really funny. Now don't get me wrong, I think Christmas trees are beautiful and I love looking at other people's trees. But for me to have a tree inside my house is just weird, like if you decided to start parking your car in your dinning room on leap days.

You don't want to park your car in the dining room that and I don't want a tree.

My friends tried to tell me I HAD to have a tree; I couldn't have Christmas without one.

Well, if those are the rules then we wouldn't celebrate Christmas; we'd celebrate 'I love you day'. We have our own rules for 'I love you day' and the trees can stay outside with the birds and bugs. But if you'd like I could haul your mailbox inside for you. Wouldn't lights and tinsel be pretty on that too?

My friends stopped trying to convince me over the years to get a tree and started looking forward to seeing what the kids and I had dressed up in place of the Christmas tree. It was a running joke with my friends about what we would dress up next. I never needed to bring in something from the outside; I had plenty of things inside my own home to dress up.

For a few years we had a 'Not Christmas, I love you day' playpen. I put all there presents in the playpen the day I bought them, because I didn't do the Santa thing either. I had some blinking lights and that furry tinsel-on-a-rope stuff and hung it on the sides of the playpen.

I took the babies out of the playpen first.

The blinking lights and that furry tinsel-on-a-rope stuff graduated from the playpen to the 'Not Christmas, I love you day' macramé plant hanger for a few years. It was a pretty big plant hanger with a good sized basket for the gifts and it hung from the ceiling.

The blinking lights and that furry tinsel-on-a-rope stuff graduated once again from the plant hanger to the 'Not Christmas, I love you day' over-stuffed chair for one year. My living room was too small for anything else.

The final year BD (before Del, my husband) we decorated the entire living room ceiling. We hung snowflakes, ornaments and the blinking lights from the ceiling so it looked like you were standing under a Christmas tree. Even my friends got involved in that.

So after all those years of not having a tree, you can see I did not have a lot of Christmas tree experience.

And the trees were mad at me for it.

My friend invited the kids and I over to her house one night because Mr. & Mrs. Clause we stopping by to visit her kids. My kids never believed in Santa but we thought it would be fun to watch her kids meet them because they were little kids.

And it was fun, especially when Santa asked my son Chris, to sit in his lap to tell him what he wanted for Christmas. He was horrified and said he would rather sit in Mrs. Clauses' lap 'Thank you very much.' There was no way he was sitting in some strange guys lap, and was a bit offended to even be asked to do such a thing.

He kept an eye on that Santa dude the rest of the evening.

So I was sitting on the floor in front of my friends' tree. I kept looking back over at it because it was so pretty with its blinking lights, tinsel and tiny little glass ornaments. I was fascinated by it. Every place I looked there was another cute little thing hanging from it wishing me a Merry Christmas. I kept wondering how it stayed up, did it suction cup to the floor? Did she somehow bolt it down? There was a dress around the bottom, so I couldn't tell, but I took a mental note to ask her later.

I didn't need to take notes, I found out all by myself.

I was mostly watching the kids and my son's freaked out reaction to the lap-sitting proposal but I kept glancing at the tree behind me.

Did that ornament just get closer to me? Nah, it couldn't have.

I was looking at my daughter Nikki, who was facing me when her eyes got really big. Before I could turn to see what she was looking at....

*Wham, bang*

I was suddenly looking out from inside the tree. The tree waited until I had looked away and jumped me.

I panicked. There were blinking lights everywhere and I was totally convinced the tree was going to try to electrocute me. I stuck my hand up to hold the tree up; still panicking thinking the tree was also trying to crush me.

Yeah, all 20 lbs. of tree. People are crushed to death by Christmas trees every day.

When I put my hand up inside the tree to prevent my inevitable crushing death, I found out that Christmas trees don't come already assembled, the branches are put into holes on the pipe thing inside that I cut the skin between my thumb and finger on.

Now the tree was biting me?!?

Nobody was helping defend me from this brutal attack; they were busy laughing at me while I was busy screaming 'Get it off! HELP! Get it off!'

I was going to die by electrocution and crushing and Santa got a kick out of that.

Jolly jerk.

The branches kept coming out of the pipe thing inside so I thought I was winning the battle. I almost had the entire tree torn apart before someone finally came and helped me. When I emerged from under the attacking Christmas tree, I crawled to the other side of it and I had tinsel in my hair and an ornament stuck in my sweater.

To which my friend almost wet her pants laughing at me about.

She was getting a rock for 'I love you day.'

They set the tree back up and had turned it on its tripod leg thing to balance it out. (Oh! That's what WASN'T holding it up!) I was still sitting on the floor, but now I was facing the tree so I saw the second attack coming. I started screaming but this time I put my legs up in the air and covered my face.

Then the tree stabbed in the butt with a branch.

I won the battle, but the tree defiantly won the war.

I didn't want to play anymore.

Stupid, mean, attacking tree.

So I developed a fear of trees. It lured me into its trap with its blinking lights; tinsel and tiny little glass ornaments and beat the heck out of me. I still have no idea why nothing on the tree broke.

Or why that tree decided I was the enemy and must be destroyed.

Fast forward to when I remarried and Del and Emily became part of our family. Del thought we were nuts because we didn't have a Christmas tree. I told him the horror I had survived and he decided I would be safer with a real Christmas tree. Like all blended families, compromises must be made and we agreed on the Christmas tree for Emily.

The enemy was about to cross the battle line. Del and Nikki went in Del's bucket truck; (he worked for the cable company back then,) to buy a tree. When they drove to the lot, the bucket truck got caught on the lights hanging around the lot and he almost took them all down.

He should have taken that as a sign.

So they bought the tallest tree in the place and brought it home. It was too tall for the living room and the top of it bent on the ceiling. I pretended to feel bad for them, the tree didn't fit, better luck next year.

Del whipped out a saw, cut some of the trunk and the top of it off.

Drat! Didn't know that was allowed.

I bet that made the tree good and mad but at least it wasn't me who did it.

He showed me the watering stand the tree was going to live in, a nice big wide stand so it couldn't drop itself on me and attack me.

Why did he think I was going near that thing? Those trees are dangerous!

As the days went by, the tree started to look more like the one on the 'Charlie Brown Christmas' cartoon that Em made me watch but Dels' was taller. I think I hurt his feelings when I started calling the tree Charlie but I didn't mean too. Del bought a few ornaments for it, but the kids kept putting 'unauthorized' things on it like stuffed animals and books.

You bring a tree into our house and we will dress it up the way we want to.

One day while Del was at work, the Charlie the tree started acting up. Every time the kids and I walked around the living room the Charlie the tree would make a 'Tish' sound.

Step, tish, step, tish.

It was driving me crazy so I called Del in his bucket truck. "Honey, Charlie the tree is picking on me." He told me the tree was already standing in the corner, so there wasn't much more he could do, but wanted me to explain to him what the tree was doing to me.

So I told him it was 'Tishing' at me.

He told me trees don't hiss. I told him I didn't say 'hiss', I said 'tish'.

He said I was out of my tree, so I held up the phone and walked closer to the 'tishing' tree. "No big deal, the needles are falling off onto the packages, have you watered it lately?" He asked.

Ahh, Lately? Didn't you mean ever? I was never informed on that.

And what do you mean the needles are falling off? The tree is shedding?

I have to water it? Why am I working for the tree?

Then he said the stupidest thing he could have said to me just before he hung up and abandoned me with my terrible 'tishing' tree problem. I had to go under Charlie the tree and give it water.

I have to go near it?!? I thought maybe if I let the stupid thing die of thirst; we could get rid of it faster.

Apparently if you let them die a slow-thirsty death, they fight back and become a fire hazard.

Well, that's a game I never want to play. Del wasn't going to be home for hours and now I was really scared of Charlie the tree. So I got the nerve up to water it because I was afraid that the static electricity from the carpet could cause Charlie the tree to suddenly burst into flames. I kept chasing the kids out of the now very dangerous living room.

Christmas trees really need to come with complete instructions for people like me.

In my 'non-Christmas tree having' mind, things had just gotten very serious.

I got a spray bottle first and thought I could mist some water towards it so I wouldn't have to get to close to it, but remembered the lights blinking all over it. Probably not a good idea to get something electrical wet so I threw the spray bottle into the bathtub.

I don't know why I threw it into the bathtub, that's just where I decided I was going to keep it from then on because I was panicking, okay?

I went back to the kitchen and got a pitcher and filled it with water. I stood by the sink for a few minutes thinking about how I was going to get the water from the pitcher to the nice big wide stand holding the tree up without having to make contact with Charlie the tree.

There was no way, I was screwed.

But Del promised me it wouldn't fall and attack me. He didn't tell me that it was going to spit needles all over me though. While I was trying to get under Charlie the tree the kids came in the living room to ask me something and I started screaming at them "Get out! Flammable tree! Don't make static! Danger! Danger!"

Don't all parents scream that at their kids? Six months therapy and they will be fine.

I came to the conclusion Charlie the tree needed three feet of personal space and that was the only time I had ever gotten near it. By the time Charlie had his drink, I was an emotional wreak covered in needles thanking God I didn't die.

Of course after that whole mess, I wouldn't let Del turn on the blinking lights. Nope, no way, far too dangerous.

We have had a fake tree since then. It's up in the attic right now.

Waiting.