The Best Christmas Gift

Christmas is a busy time for everyone. It's busy for men because we rush to the malls last minute, get distracted by 60" 1080p plasma TVs and end up forgetting to buy gifts for our loved ones. It's busy for the women because not only are they planning what will be served at the obligatory Christmas party, they are also baking the pastries and cookies because the men are too selfishly distracted by that 60" plasma TV they just bought themselves during the pre-Christmas sale. Kids? Well, they're not busy at all. But that doesn't mean they're quietly hiding out of the way. No, kids are bouncing off the walls full of excitement, full of joy, and full of candy.

Way tons much candy. Yeah we used to say that. I don't know who we is, or when we said it. But we did. And, clearly, I still do.

Suz and I spent Christmas morning opening our taxedermied platypuses, back shavers, cans of "Fart-B-Gone" and life-sized posters of goats. Once the excitement ended, we headed off to my parents for a tasty dinner with grandma, followed by more extravagant gifts. (I can't believe I got two goat posters.)

Boxing day was a day of travelling. Suz and I spent 5 hours driving to her parents, in the Ottawa vicinity. Another delicious dinner and another round of gift-opening resulted in happiness, and a DVD all about goats.

However, of all the gifts received I'm hard-pressed to find a better one than the pine tree which decided to fall vaguely into the grass and underbrush. Specifically, it was the fact that it fell AWAY from our aluminum Insight instead of on top of it, crippling its driveability and stranding us.

The wind storm fiercely snapped treetops the way a big thing, lets say a monster, snaps little things, like toothpicks. Power lines went down and were it not for the natural gas stove, all would have gone hungry.

Tough trees braved the storm by using nature's sneaky technique of bending, some at staggering 45 degree angles. More pathetic trees, like the pine near our car, cracked at the base and slammed to the ground. An elderly elm crashed across the gravel driveway, blocking it entirely. Suz's brother, arriving back from church, was the first to discover the mess. Single-handedly, he broke it apart and moved the pieces to the sides of the driveway, but it was still wise to drive over the remains slowly.

The death of trees is sad, but goes relatively unnoticed at Christmas, a time when pines are cut down and sold at Home Depot for a tidy profit, a profit which Home Depot employees then use to buy discounted Christmas trees, sap-protectors and goat DVDs for their own families.

In the end, because nothing was damaged, the fallen trees were soon forgotten. Everyone was happy that everyone was safe and uncrushed, and Christmas was a success!