Holiday of the Triffids

Some holiday traditions involve receiving red lipstick prints from virtual strangers claiming to share some of your genetic structure.

Some involve enjoying liberal applications of liquid from the "nog" family. (The wild nog is native to the remote regions of Norway, I believe.)

And some involve going Over the River and Through the Woods to relieve the Christmas Tree farm of one otherwise-happy conifer.

But until last year, none of these traditions involved said pine tree being invited inside, only to act like a rude house guest deciding to explore the medicine cabinet and underwear drawers.

I don't know what brought it on, exactly. Maybe it was the excitement of its sudden, traumatic liberation from the ground...

Maybe, as in b-horror flicks, a mysterious meteor had crash-landed in the Christmas tree field that year, giving the spruces all-new, alien ambition through its pulsing red glow.

Maybe the tree had been reading Lord of the Rings and thought the Ents were pretty cool.

Or, okay, maybe I just didn't have one stabilizing nut tight enough in the tree stand. Maybe that.

But the tree spent its first day at home happy enough. Straight and tall and wearing more gaudy baubles than a Wayne Newton "Danke Shoen-a-rama" birthday blow-out at the MGM Grand.

Yet soon, I began to get the sense something was... amiss.

Was the tree leaning?... Had it been that far over from the wall this morning?...

Or was this just some kind of Timbaspruceaphobia, the neurotic, baseless fear that your Christmas tree actually wants to play lead prop in a Monty Python Lumberjack skit?

It was the pine tree equivalent of, "Was that mole there before? Does it look bigger? Was it always that dark?"

And you just have no idea because you never really looked at it until now. So you pick at it until you make it really dark and red and irritated. Because that, of course, makes everything so much better.

So, I climbed under the tree, tightened things up in the stand, and convinced myself that all was well again.

By evening, there was no question-- the tree was leaning a good foot to the left and seemed to be trying to peer out the bay window into the neighbors' house. It was reporting back things like what they were having for dinner, and laughing at their pajamas.

"This is not the spirit of Christmas," I told it. "Work with me here."

Explaining the situation, I enlisted the help of my housemate to hold the thing in place while I tightened it back into the stand. By morning, it still looked pretty good. I was feeling hopeful.

But by evening, it was back to wandering around the living room and spying on the neighbors like some elderly lady with Alzheimer's-- forgetting where it was supposed to be and even why it was there.

It did tell me I was out of milk, my sock drawer needed some serious organization, and I should consider buying a different brand of toothpaste.

Then it zoned out watching squirrels frolic in the backyard.

"There is nothing to see there!" I insisted. I started to wonder if maybe it was just homesick, longing for the Great Outdoors once more.

So, again with the straightening. Again with me, climbing under the tree and tightening things up.

A day passed. Another day and...

I returned from work to see one of my vintage ornaments-- an unusual Shiny Brite handed down to me from my dad, and from his mom to him-- cracked like an egg on the middle of the living room floor.

The tree was leaning...

And this time, it looked unspeakably guilty.

"Okay-- that's it, fir-boy! We're having a come-to-Jesus meeting right now."

So with the kind of painful maneuvering 70s action heroes use with batches of nitroglycerine, I took that tree, vintage ornaments and all, and carefully... carefully... angled it toward the wall.

Perfect Christmas Tree-- ha! I said-- it was the Leaning Pine of Pisa, and this was apparently as good as it would ever get.

"You know your tree is leaning," my dad observed helpfully on Christmas Day. "Do you want me to help you straighten it?"

I explained, no. It was put in the corner for a reason, and it needed to think about what it had done.

And for the remainder of the holiday season, that is where it stayed...

Slumped in the corner of the room like some drunk uncle who went over-heavy on the nog, sleeping it off until January 2.

This Saturday was once again Over the River and to the Tree Farm time. And I admit, I approached the spruce selection with just a bit of trepidation.

I eyed them all up carefully, one by one, looking for anything... anything.... that might betray the signs of A Roamer.

And to my surprise, upon its arrival home, the tree went merrily in the stand. Straight, happy, just the right amount of room. It was easy....

Now I'm starting to think possibly too easy.

I say, Folks-- if I come home tonight and see one more vintage Shiny Brite has bitten the dust?

I am so gonna chop my tree down from the Martha Stewart Christmas collection next year. Or else keep a nice big batch of salt water on hand to douse it with.

I hear Triffids hate that.

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So, folks, what holiday traditions have you had go awry over the years? Is there anything you can almost count on to not work out quite right or to be a nuisance?

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