Today's holiday topic is: Christmas Tree Care.
The Christmas tree is a cherished holiday tradition that dates back 500 years, to the early Germans. What happened was, one night right around Christmas, a bunch of early Germans were sitting around, and one of them, named Helmut, said: “I know! Let’s chop down a perfectly good fir tree, drag it inside, and see if we can get it to stand up again!”
“Why in the world would we do THAT?” asked the other early Germans, who also happened to speak English.
“It’s a cherished holiday tradition!” replied Helmut.
This made sense to the other Germans, because they had just invented beer. So they went out, chopped down a tree, dragged it home and spent the next four days trying to make it stand up. We now know that, under the laws of physics, this is impossible. Nevertheless, the tradition of trying to erect Christmas trees continues to the present day. We should be grateful that the early Germans didn’t decide to drag home some large forest organism that is even LESS appropriate for interior use than a tree. Imagine what Christmas would be like today if they had used, for example, a moose. We’d have millions of families driving home with a dead Christmas moose strapped to the roof of the car; and then Dad would spend hours trying to get the moose to fit into a cheesy $4.99 drugstore moose stand; and then the whole family would decorate it; and then, as everybody gathered around in admiration, it would topple majestically to the ground. So it would be essentially the same as what we do now, except that Dad would not get pine sap in his hair.
But the point is that the Christmas tree is a cherished tradition, as reflected in the lyrics to the classic Christmas carol “O Tannenbaum”:
“O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,
“Something something something,
“So bring us some figgy pudding,
“But not TOO figgy, because we get gas.”
Now let’s talk about caring for your Christmas tree. According to the American Association Of Guys Without All Their Teeth Selling Christmas Trees From Tents, the major varieties of Christmas tree are: Pine, Spruce, Douglas Fir, Walnut, Fake, Balsa and Douglas Firbanks Jr. The Association recommends that, before you buy a tree, you should always have Dad pick it up and bang it hard on the ground a couple of times; according to the Association, this is “a lot of fun to watch.”
Once you get the tree home and set up in its stand (allow six to eight weeks) you will want to take measures to prevent it from shedding needles all over your floor. The best way to do this, according to the Association, is to “remove your floor.” If that is not practical, you can make a mixture of four cups of water, two tablespoons of bleach and one tablespoon of sugar, but it will do you no good. When decorating the tree, always use strings of cheap lights manufactured in Third World nations that only recently found out about electricity. Shop around for light strings that have been pre-snarled at the factory for your convenience.
OK! Now that we’ve covered tree care, it’s time for this:
SPECIAL HOLIDAY SAFETY TIP: If you’re staging a Nativity show, and you’re thinking of using live animals, you had best think again. This tip is based on an alarming newspaper story from the Annapolis (Md.) Capital, written by Christopher Munsey and sent in by alert reader Katie Gibbs.
The story, which I swear I am not making up, is headlined: “Huge camel fleeing live Nativity scene is killed on Route 50.” It states that on the night of Sunday, Dec. 21, a church was preparing to stage a Nativity show featuring live animals, when a 6-foot-tall, 600-pound camel named Ernie escaped, ran onto a highway, was struck by a car, and went to That Big Zoo in the Sky. The article quotes the driver of the car that hit Ernie as saying: “How in the hell is a camel on Route 50 in the United States of America?”
These are words that we would all be wise to remember. But let us not let the threat of colliding with escaped camels dampen the joy we feel during this special time of year, as expressed in the traditional carol “Deck the Halls”:
“Deck the halls with boughs of holly!”
“Fa la la la la, la la la (crash)”
