Horticultural Havoc

After getting the scary orange decoration removed from my house I decided it was time to stake my claim. Christmas had to be shown at my homestead before anyone else struck. It was time to sharpen the mind and prepare for the weekend's trickiest activity. The holidays always see the Rainy family involved in the hunt for the ultimate prey, the Christmas Tree. This is not the easy task you may think as most people are used to going to their local garden center or hardware store and selecting a pre-slaughtered tree from the lot. This is like going to the supermarket to get a frozen turkey and claiming that you captured it. You may be stunned to find that I don't necessarily do things the easy way (yeah right, maybe if you're new round here). We go into the wild and stalk a real live tree. Wily though they are they can be felled if you take care. The key is preparation.

Christmas trees are a little like deer and if you just go storming in, feet a clomping and children screeching then you will scare all the good ones away. All that will remain are the older and more infirm trees that were unable to flee. These poor specimens hold extremely still in the hopes that you will feel bad for them or ignore the "deceased" trees and keep hunting for the lively ones.

The first critical element in the hunt is the selection of weapons. While a chainsaw will dispatch your quarry very quickly it is fairly heavy. Lugging it through the bush can be fairly tricky and if it doesn't start on the first pull you may find the tree long gone by the time you get the saw running.

A good bowsaw is a nice choice because of the aggressive, rapid cuts that enables an attacker to make. Sneak up on their base and you can mortally wound them, rendering them incapable of flight. The other choice, while a little messier, is definitely more macho. A good sturdy axe. One good swing is all it takes to cripple one of these green demons. As well as having that stress relieving quality of delivering the death blow with a primal scream, they also limit the amount of time spent with your arm inside the foul beasts. This will result in limiting the bites you receive. While a tree bite is non-lethal they can be quite aggravating due to their volume. An average tree is capable of biting its attacker hundreds of times before their arm gets clear. While it would be nice to use a ranged weapon, such as a shotgun or rifle to take them out, this is a horrible idea. Just imagine being caught in the middle of a herd of stampeding trees!!

The second item you need is a good disguise. Since mankind has been harvesting trees for more than a few years now, they have gotten wily to our ways. It is critical to hide your identity as a human in order to get close enough to deliver the killing blow. In preparation for the trip the family dons their ghille suits and prepares to stalk the prey. We stand a pretty good chance at closing to an effective range at this point since we now resemble a family of trees ourselves.

We climb out of the van and begin our trek. After a few minutes we spot the perfect specimen hiding in the snow. I think it may have spotted me as it is sitting perfectly still. It may have been feeding but I couldn't be entirely sure. As I closed in on it the kids started grumbling about being cold and hungry. My wife clamped her hands over their mouths in horror, but it was too late. Alerted to our presence the tree tried to bolt, but I was quicker. Having forgotten my axe I had to jump on it with my bowsaw. Delivering a lethal stroke to its base I was able to continue the cut to bring it to the ground. As I picked the needles from my flesh and the sap from my hair, I stood admiring the kill. With that sense of accomplishment that we males find in completing pointless tasks with zeal I drag our kill to the van where we begin to stuff the carcass in the back only to find that it wasn't quite dead yet. After sustaining several more tree bites I get it subdued and stuffed into the van.

It turns out that the tree was still not quite dead though. Once we get home the tree decided to put up one last fight. I dragged the carcass into the living room and tried to stand it up in the base only to find that it wouldn't hold still. With the wife grasping it by the throat and myself holding it by its feet we stuffed it into the base and tied it to the wall is it can't escape. It's brethren from previous years had shown their distaste for captivity by throwing themselves to the floor in protest and destroying ornaments and terrifying the dog. This one was not getting the same leeway.

As the evening rolls in, I begin to think that an artificial tree is the way to go next year as I shave off my hair to remove the tree blood and apply peroxide to my tree bites. After bandaging up the bites I give my head a shake as I walk into the living room to the fragrance of decomposing tree carcass. What a delightful aroma, how could I want to miss that? Once the kids thaw out and stop crying they'll understand that I am building memories that they'll treasure for years to come. I can't take that away from them and besides, the cuts and bruises I sustained should heal by next year so they'll forget about them until the next tree attacks Daddy. If they don't want to settle down I'll just untie the tree and let it chase them around for a while. Don't worry, the dog will make sure they don't get eaten.