In accordance with the law, our (fake) Christmas tree went up last night.

D-Ever-Impatient-Missus used to try and be sneaky and put the tree up in November, but I was always nervous that the cops were going to raid our house and bust us for early tree erection. Eager wood.

Some people also think you should wait until 12 days before Christmas to put the tree up, because of that song, The Twelve Days of Christmas. Except that song actually refers to the 12 days after Christmas, through until Epiphany.

No. The tree goes up the first weekend in December. Otherwise, you are a criminal. And Santa and Jesus and Bono will hate you.

The kids, of course, loved decorating the tree.

Well… Baby Ginge loved pulling the decorations off of the tree.

She also loved tearing open all the freshly-wrapped presents under the tree this morning, when D-Missus’ back was turned.

Christmas is an exciting time for kids.
And D-Missus.

She shakes and fondles and molests any presents with her name on it, trying to work out what is contained within.
She also likes to drop hints about the present she’s bought you.

I don’t get quite so excited about the Christmas tree side of things.

I guess it stems back to when I was a kid and I brought back a small pine tree from the back of the farm.

It was small, but it wasn’t young.
It had been growing in the burned-out stump of a large dead pine, but its roots were constricted, so it had developed a bonsai-type dwarfism.
Sort of like Gary Coleman.

I relocated the pine to outside the dog kennel that served as my bedroom.

It thrived in its new location, and grew with the vigour of a tree that once didn’t have much room to spread its roots, but now had much more room to spread out its roots, and so it was spreading out its roots, and it was thriving because its roots were spread out...

And a year later my dad chopped it down and took it inside the house, and mum put decorations on it, because it had grown to a perfect Christmas tree size.

Damn you Dad-D!

I was heart-broken.

Almost as heart-broken as that time I discovered an injured hawk on the side of the road.

These are majestic creatures. You rarely get close.

Its wing was injured, but not necessarily broken.

I caught it and wrapped it up in my army jacket and then ran 3km (2000 miles) home, gently reassuring it all the way, desperately dodging its angry beak.

I showed my dad. I thought he might take it in to the native bird recovery center, or something.

I gently passed him the hawk.

He gently put it on the ground.

Then he not-so-gently smacked it over the head with a shovel and it not-so-gently died.

Damn you Dad-D!

Is it any wonder that I was quite worried the first time I took D-Missus home to meet my parents?!

The Pine Tree Incident is probably partly why I formed the Christmas Tree Liberation Front.

The D-Man does not endorse the brutal annual slaying of innocent trees for the purposes of dropping pine needles on lounge room floors.

The D-Man is willing to come to your house and blow up your letter box in order to make you repent.

The D-Man will also talk in the third person whilst doing so!

Get an artificial tree.

Or – if you’re cheap and desperate, or just short on space – do what D-Missus did when we were living in a wardrobe in London: cut a tree shape out of shiny wrapping paper, stick it on the wall and then stick your presents under that.

Or better yet, do what I plan to do in future and grow a pine tree in a container, which can be moved inside for the Christmas period.

Or better yet, grow a giant dope plant in a container and decorate that instead. An Xmas Pot Plant.

Yeah.

What is it with parents who have babies in December?

Jesus, it’s already a busy social month without spending every weekend in December going from one kid’s birthday party to the next.

Why can’t parents plan these fucking (heh) things a little bit better, so as not to be such an inconvenience?

Baby Ginge turns one in two week’s time.

They grow up so fast.

It seems like only yesterday that she was pulling decorations off of the Christmas tree…

Golfwidow mentioned the other day how she was flattered to discover that she was on someone’s MILF (Mother I’d Like to F…ornicate) list.

Even though she isn’t even a mother…

I wonder whether chicks have similar lists about men.

Am I on someone’s list?

Would that then make me a FILF?

That sounds so filthy.

Mmmmmm….