Happy 4th of Ju... CHRISTMAS!!!

The holiday shopping season is heavily upon us. Every year, merchants of all types push the date at which they begin holiday sales, holiday advertisements and holiday ritual sacrifices back further. I, for one, was raised in a family that eschewed celebrating anything Christmas or December-related until after Thanksgiving. How times have changed.

Robin and I were on one of our excursions to Costco in the end of August this year. We walked through the entrance, past the electronics and my eyes set upon a sight so horrifying, so inappropriate, so vile that I immediately gagged. Gleaming before me, fifty feet away, was a display of LED Christmas trees, er holiday trees, blinking and gyrating atop metal shelves. One was all white while the others were various colors. Each more offensive than the last, they all had their own special way of evoking from me cringes of disgust.

The first tree was a ridiculous attempt at a regular green plastic tree. It was ridiculous insofar as it was obviously plastic in the first place, but then they sprayed it with white, um, "stuff" to make it look even worse. The people responsible for setting this thing up didn't take the time necessary to fluff out the limbs to at least give it the illusion of reality. I've seen the process of setting up a plastic tree and it can be summed up quite easily - sucks a big fatty. Each limb has to be carefully locked on, fluffed and rubbed in order for the "spines" to stand up-ish and not look like it had been sitting in a box 345 days out of the year. It never really works, even with hours of obsessive prodding and pulling. What got me, however, was the "snow." It weighed down the limbs so the tree had this effect of being droopy and pathetic while also being plastic. I suppose I should enlighten you to the Equation of Plastic Christmas Trees: (Plastic + Droopy) x "Snow" = Fail

The second tree was a cascading set of seven concentric rings, each a bit larger than the last. Around each ring were 3" plastic balls within which twittered a red, green, and blue LED. The sparseness of the tree was what offended me the most. In fact, it was only recognizable as a tree insofar as it was positioned next to other, more effectively-looking Christmas trees. The plastic balls were several inches away from each other, and the rings upon which they sat were connected by electric wires supplying the fabulous globes with absolutely necessary power. The visual abortion was soon joined by audible murder as the tree spewed loud electronic Christmas music, from Jingle Bells to Deck the Halls. The epileptic-inducing light display was a lawsuit waiting to happen. I could barely concentrate after looking at it and ten minutes later, blood started dripping from my nose.

The final tree was what I imagine a 37-year old child might design. It was a painfully sappy plastic thing which twinkled and sparkled for miles. In contrast to the second tree, this one was thick with decorations. Little houses, people, snowflakes, nutcrackers, candy canes, snowmen and baubles were hot glued on, and in most cases not very well. Some were crooked, nearly upside-down, and almost all of them had expressions. I'm sorry, I'm pluralizing "expression" when indeed there was only one: shit eating grin. There was a slight variance in that some had teeth while others did not. When taking a step back, one saw that the tree radiated a severly insane aura. The person who designed this thing lives in a house/world/reality where it's Christmas every day of the year. And should you point out to them the fact that it isn't really Christmas every day of the year, they would strangle you with a string of lights and eat your still-warm body garnished with mistletoe and shards of broken ornaments.