Tree of Death: Nickname for Christmas Tree of 2018

Our trees have naturally had nicknames since the first year we Christmas'd in Germany in 2015.  That year, we barely moved in and received our household goods by Christmas and we just bought a tree on post from the Boy Scouts.  It was purchased late in the season, when the pickin's were slim and was a pitiful excuse for a tree so we called it the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree.

In 2016, we found a place to chop down our own tree like we had been accustomed to in Maryland.  Hannah was in a "mood" and wanted to get a huge tree.  Since we had really high ceilings, we agreed to find a big one this year.  It was about 20 feet long, just a tad longer than our van and touched the ceiling.  We dubbed it the Griswald Family Christmas Tree.

In 2017, we were very late in the season again because of all our trips.  We went to the closest place that you could cut your own tree and it was hard to find a good one.  We ended up with a super spiky one that we actually had to use gloves to put on the ornaments.  That tree was Spike.

This year, being in Texas, I wasn't even sure if you could cut your own tree, but Brian found two places.  We were pretty late in the season again which may have caused some of the problems, but the real issue was the fact that the type of trees were just not right.  These trees had fewer branches, and were not even close to the Christmas tree triangular shape.  Plus, they were tiny...

Genevieve, who'd been just itching to get our tree like we always do, jumped out of the van and took off running through the trees to find the perfect one.  She was already sad that Isaac wasn't going to be able to play their annual game of hide and seek and tag in the trees because he was recovering from his surgery and could barely walk.  She pretty quickly came running back to her daddy  in tears because the trees were so terrible.  

We ended up settling on one, but while looking around, Brian showed the kids a bug that he warned them was very dangerous, called an Assassin Bug.  It can kill you.  He had told me about this bug previously in a dinner conversation whereupon I told him to stop frightening everyone with his crazy death bug stories.  

It's even hard to distinguish our tree from the dead things in the background, right?  You have to really look for it here.

Nanna had come down to spend the day with us and accompanied us for this tradition.

We were a little amused by this point at the stark contrast between our Griswald family tree that Brian and I had to lug up three stories of stairs huffing and puffing and this one that he cut down in less than a few seconds and he could press it with one hand and not break a sweat.

 On the drive home it whistled all the way home (the air going through the tree played a melody) and so we considered the nickname "Whistling Tree."

We also got a kick out of how tiny it looked on top of our van.  See this post for the Griswald tree on our van.

 They shook the tree, we drove home with it on the roof for 45 minutes, and well into decorating it that night with our traditional cups of hot cocoa in hand, Genna spotted an Assassin bug on the tree.  I mean really!  After all that it was still hanging on tight.  Brian killed it, Hannah refused to continue to hang ornaments, and I was worrying that it was infested with the killer bugs.  We checked it over multiple times with a flash light and Brian was pretty sure it was all clear.

The next morning while doing some school work in front of the tree, Isaac and Bobby were standing in front of it talking about the ornaments.  Bob said the tree poked him, and Isaac told him to step back a step.  Then Bobby began screaming.  He indicated some how that his neck was the problem and so I am frantically looking on his neck, totally convinced their is an Assassin bug biting him on the neck, when I see a big bug crawling out from between his two shirts on the collar.  At first all I could see were legs and antennae and I start trying to flick it off of him.  He's completely panicked now and then I feel the sting as well.  Suddenly I see the culprit in his hair now.  It's a wasp.  I hit it to the floor and step on it.  I let it lie there for a while because I just wanted proof it wasn't an Assassin bug.  I called Brian and he looks more info up about the Assassin bugs and realizes the ones we saw were relatives of the bug that gives you Chagras.  Phew, that made me feel better, but I still have nicknamed this tree the "Tree of Death" because Wow! 

We only were able to fit half our ornaments on the tree and that was with putting three or four ornaments on each branch sturdy enough to hold them.  We may have to take a hiatus from cutting our own tree next year (although Brian is adamantly against a fake tree.)  I heard a story that a friend of a friend in Texas cut their own tree only to find it was infested with cockroaches after they got it home.