The Christmas Tree Chronicles

[Strangie]

Just about an hour ago, I got back home from helping my ma and stepdad get a tree. We put it up and we're leaving it to dry. Our tree is all short and fat, though, and... slightly lopsided, I think. Apparently we don't have the greatest judgement skills when it comes to this.

Of course this kind of thing pales in comparison to last year when my stepdad cut down a tree then when we got to the car, found out his keys fell out of his pocket while cutting it. Yeah, that was a riot.

Does anybody have any interesting Christmas tree experiences to share? Animals tearing your tree down? Did you get a Charlie Brown type tree one year? You know, the kind that seems like a stick with just a couple of pines on it, and if you put an ornament on it, it bends to the ground. Or maybe you're one of those rich people who spends 100 dollars plus on an artificial tree because you're too lazy to actually cut your own.

Oooor maybe you're an environmentalist and think cutting down trees is evil. In that case, don't post in this topic. D:

[Rackinac]

I have a fake tree, due to fear of fire. Hurrhurr...

My cat sleeps under the tree. I guess it makes him think he's outside...

But sometimes, he sleeps in the tree.

He broke 3 ordaments so far in the past 5 years.

[Moot]

I'm not sure if the occasion where our two cats managed to stash lumps of turkey underneath the tree counts as anything particularly interesting.

The more interesting part was when we had a fetid misma of sorts creeping around the room corrupting anything caught in its stifling tendrils of stench. Turns out, we didn't know they'd been saving turkey under there. We also didn't know that it had fermented up until that point.

Yeah, we got a new tree soon after that because the aroma of old turkey isn't something thats easy to remove from an artificial tree, apparently.

[Fluory]

So last week, they put up a really lame and ugly fake tree in the computer lab at my school. Half the fake bristles on the tree were missing, and the lights they got for it ironically didn't work either. Despite this, though, my entire French class got a real kick out of it. It was a real Charlie Brown moment. I also learned that I can't make those really nifty paper snowflake things.

I probably have some more, but I can't remember them right now. How saddening.

[teh yoshi]

We always get real trees every year. My dad is Upstate New York like that.

Anyway, I've really not much of interest to say on the topic of Christmas trees, except my dad has a horrible fashion sense of how to dress up our tree. He just really, really likes to pile on those ornaments we stash in a massive plastic box kept rotting in our garage. The tree is full of ornaments, but the box was only half empty, and he insists on throwing the rest of it on there. It's highly disturbing. And if that just wasn't enough to rob the tree of its well deserved dignity, he tends to throw on a bunch of glittering fake snow silver strands on it, really caking it like a two dollar truck stop trick. It's a God awful mess of a totally eye-wrenching sight of a busy-looking tree. If only trees could speak, they probably wouldn't say anything right now anyway because our tree probably just died a little inside (despite having its precious life-giving roots slashed apart from its body below among other things).

Oh, and my dogs keep lapping up the water... What attracts them to that as they already have their own bowl of water out in the open is beyond me.

[red.yoshi]

Speaking of those silvery tinsels on Christmas Trees..>,>

My old black-lab used to eat those right off the tree like they were candy. And, well, what goes in must come out. It was pretty humorous seeing him with tinsels streaming from his behind. My dad had to help him out there.

Yeah, we get real Christmas trees also. A couple years ago I accidentally knocked ours over. It was decorated too. Our family room was a mess with bits of silver and green across the ground. Not to mention the solution we were using to feed to tree left black stains in the carpet. x,x

[Yoshi]

We used to get real trees exclusively but as the hassle got greater and greater we changed things up a bit. A fake tree for the room with all the gifts in them, and a smaller real tree in the living room to satisfy tradition.

Though, back in the day things used to be mostly my fault - I was a very active kid. Or so they tell me. Anyway, I was about four or five years old and diving under that real tree 'cause I was fascinated at the water they had under the base. The branches were low enough to completely hide me under that thing so I probably thought it was some kind of tree fortress.

Now, this base was a tripod that actually touched the ground. So the dish was kinda suspended. Unfortunately for the tree I was knocking the tripod legs around a bit and hit one just a little too far off, causing it to get imbalanced and fall directly onto the couch my dad happened to be sitting on. Not good times.

[Sol Vent]

My backyard is a forest, so we have, and always will, get real trees. However, these trees are always pretty tall. We need a ladder to decorate the top. Anyway, the story...

One christmas, close to the time the original Smash Bros came out and changed my life forever, we got a tree at a more last minute time than usual. We brought it through the front door (prickles everywhere) and set it up uneventfully.

So, when we went to rent a game from the local rental place, a common occasion at the time, we were pretty satisfied with ourselves. However, when we returned and opened the front door, our path was almost entirely obscured by prickly, mint green foliage. We had to get into the house from the back and set up the tree all over again, but with fewer ornaments, obviously.