Monday, December 14, 2009

Oh Tanenbaum, scary tanenbaum

[A mostly true seasonal story]

This past Saturday I was driving along, enjoying the neighborhood displays of Christmas decorations ……noting the giant inflatable snowmen, the reindeer on roofs, the wreaths and ribbons bedecking doors….. when out of nowhere I was appalled by a gruesome display of psychological torture that will haunt me til my dying day.

The day was bright and sunny with a crisp tang of snow in the air. Up ahead on my right I saw something white billowing like a low floating cloud.

But in this case it was more like the fog cinematographers use to set the scene in a monster movie.

A scary scene.

A scene where you want to yell at the actors: "Don't go down the stairs!"

As I got closer I saw that what was billowing was wood smoke. Wood smoke from a pot bellied stove set up in the middle of the parking lot of a storefront selling outdoor garden ornaments.

This time of year they also sell Christmas trees.

[You might want to shoo the children out of the room at this point]

As I drew level I saw two men with bulging money belts standing near the pot bellied stove gleefully rubbing their hands together to warm them. Just to the right of the stove…… completely enveloped in wood smoke…… stood twenty or thirty Christmas trees trussed up in rope, shivering, dropping their dying needles all over the ground, huddled together for comfort.

The poor trees!

Not only had someone snuck into their forest, mercilessly chopped them down, bound their glorious limbs together with rope and spirited them off to beelzebub's parking lot…….. while they awaited whatever fresh hell was in store…….. they were being forced to stand in the essence of one of their own species while it provided heat for their captors!

My mind reeled with the unfairness of it all.

But the great thing?

Just as I pulled into the convenience store next door an army of walking trees straight out of Tolkien's imagination crossed the street …..picked up the guys warming themselves....knocked their heads together[gently] and tossed them onto the roof of the nearest house. Then the walking tree army freed all the captive Christmas trees and they all marched off together into the woods.

At least that's what I told the cops when they showed up.

And just fyi?

Afterwards I found out two very interesting things……Vaseline easily removes pine tar from a cape and if you prepare the soil really well first, it's just amazing how quickly rooting hormone works on fir trees…….

12 comments:

Kris said...

LOL! That's great!

When I was a kid, I would get really upset if my parents brought home a cut tree. I was all like, "Why are we celebrating Jesus's birth by murdering an innocent tree?" From the time I was 6 on, my folks were forced to buy the trees that come with the root ball that you plant the day after Christmas. (We weren't a fake tree family either.)

For the record, only one of those live trees survived to adulthood. I guess the root balls are trimmed too close when the Christmas tree harvesters dig them up. But at least they had a fighting chance.

Clean up that cape and get right back out there! You have more work to be done!

Karen from Mentor said...

Well at least you saved one Kris, good for you!

If you have a couple of free hours....I have an extra cape....

:0)

Cat Connor said...

hee hee hee tree armies. as a kid we had a Norfolk pine that grew in a pot inside - it was spindly and hideous. It years to grow and eventually was planted outside. It stood in the garden for many years.
Then chopped it down with his chain saw and it became fire wood.

Karen from Mentor said...

I think you were missing a word in the last line Cat...I'm assuming it's because the bunny got loose in the house and there's mayhem and chaos all around you while you're typing...but wait...why would that be any different from any other day?

I'm going to retype the sentence these three ways...if you feel like coming back to clarify...please do...[inquiring minds and all that]

Then SANTA chopped it down with his chain saw and it became fire wood

Then BIGFOOT chopped it down with his chain saw and it became fire wood

Then JESUS chopped it down with his chain saw and it became fire wood


It had to be ONE of those things right?

:0)

Cat Connor said...

If JESUS chopped it down wouldn't it have become a coffee table, maybe bookcases, or even a nice soup kitchen for the poor?

:-)

There is a missing word - pretty sure it was Dad but that's not to say it wasn't also SANTA but definitely not BIGFOOT - ya see Dad's feet, well, they're small and he's tall. Quite odd really!

Anonymous said...

That's so sad!
We just bought a fake Christmas tree today... it's nice, I can't wait to decorate it next week :)
(It will be weird though, I never had a fake tree before)

Anonymous said...

PS: hope your cape doesn't need ironing :P

Karen from Mentor said...

Nope no ironing of my cape Estrella, it's wash and wear.


And I like the idea of bookcases Cat. Can't go wrong with a carpenter making you a nice set of bookcases.

:0)

Wendi said...

So funny.

And I hope your cape was faux-fur lined to keep you warm.

~Tim said...

More tree work? [Or is that digging too far back in your archives?]

Karen from Mentor said...

Harkening back to a previous post is always encouraged Tim, it saves me from giving those pesky pop quizzes to see if you're actually paying attention. :0)

[the post in question is titled "Come peek at my naked fancy"]

http://miscellaneousyammering.blogspot.com/2009/08/come-peek-at-my-naked-fancy.html

Karen from Mentor said...

Thank you for making the fur faux Wendi. The cape isn't lined, but not to worry.....

I was wearing those magic long johns that the fairies made for me out of spider silk, so I was toasty warm.

:0)