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.