Christmas and the Praying Mantis

Christmas is a time for merriment; a time for caroling and inveterate expletives uttered at the strings of outdoor Christmas lights that inexplicably won’t light.  Yet beyond the generally festive mood, sometimes lurks a bit of Holiday tension.  At my house, this light-hearted strain  manifests itself as the perennial disagreement between me and my wife over the Christmas tree: artificial or real.  Just when the scrape has scabbed over from the previous year, here we are, picking at it as if trying to peel back the sticker on a Dole banana.

My wife loves the idea of an artificial tree.  I get that.  Who can argue with the convenience of the 2-piece plastic pine?  The tree can be accessed from storage at anytime by dragging the 4 foot box from beneath the staircase through the black widow webs and house mouse pellets.   Once upstairs and out of the box, I merely insert segment A into segment B, and presto – instant tree (batta bing, batta boom).  This is a completely unsatisfying and antiseptic experience.

Me?  I prefer a bona fide, sap-seeping, needle dropping pine.  I’ll pout and fuss like a toddler to get it.  I love the scent of Christmas, and nothing says Christmas to the nose like rich pine scent filling every corner of the house.  Even Charlie Brown and Linus Van Pelt will choose a single, meager pine branch over the pre-manufactured, aluminum, perfectly conical conifer.  There was no plastic when Laura Ingalls Wilder settled into the little house on the prairie.  Her dad slew the tree with an axe, dragging the prize home through the snow using draft horses like a prized buck destined for the spit.

Now every smart, married man knows to tread lightly when choosing to oppose his spouse.  I suspect that even the male praying mantis, half the size of his female counterpart, weighs his options carefully when his biological urge to mate is present.  Being eaten alive by the female is a real possibility in praying mantis circles (also a possibility for the married man and to be avoided in either case).

Yet there are times when every self-respecting man must stand strong.  And when it comes to the Christmas tree, I do.  So, like every other year that my wife and I have been together, I proudly stood my Colorado-harvested Douglas fir up last weekend.  I spent two solid afternoons placing hand-picked ornaments on every linear inch of exposed branch.  And it didn’t matter to me that once the tree was chock full of ornaments that it became top-heavy and fell down (narrowly missing the cat).  Nor did it matter that the uncooperative tree fell over 3 more times this week and I am now cleaning sap off of the coach. I got my way.   I’m proud to report today that thanks to Target who helped me replace the broken ornaments for $100 and the framing wire and hook used to anchor the tree to the living room wall, I believe the tree is now tamed.

Sitting near the tree now (not too close, mind you) and basking in its warm and scented wonder, I can’t help thinking of the immortal words of Linus Van Pelt:  “…..Fear not, for behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people…..”  — Even for those that insist on a real Christmas tree.