Rose is Rose by Don Wimmer and Pat Brady for December 14, 2015

Forget the fearful turkey-caust of Thanksgiving: ignore the ignoble ritual disfigurement of Easter Eggs at Easter: fail to notice the nauseating calumnies heaped upon witches at Halloween: completely miss the malicious bonfiring of Guys just after that on the fifth of November (even though, since that’s only in England I don’t suppose it should matter too much to YOU)—-But DO NOT, do not ever, or for one moment forget, ignore, fail to notice or completely miss the tragic plight and sad, sad fate at this otherwise joyous time of year of…

the sad fate of…of…CHRISTMAS TREES!!!

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One really cold year, my wife and two daughters (both barely school age) climbed into the Blazer and rode through the fields on our 23 acres and found the perfect cedar Christmas tree. It was well below freezing, so the girls stayed in the warm vehicle while I cut it down. Back at home, we put it on the stand and I went to work while they stayed to decorate it. Then came the frantic call: “There’s a snake in the house!”A tiny (and harmless) ringneck snake was spending winter in the tree when we brought it inside the warm house and woke it. It was so small that curled up, it looked like the wheel off a toy car and my wife tried to pick it up. I’m surprised I didn’t hear the screaming at work.She trapped it under a glass jar and I carried it outside when I arrived home. Unfortunately for the snake, our cat came along and slurped it up like a piece of spaghetti.

Christmas Vacation Squirrel, the best.

…then unceremoniously toss it to the curb on January 2nd…

Always thought it was deeply ironic that we do that. Very few people have ever heard of living Xmas trees, either…

We cut trees in the mountains at a tree farm and this one year, somehow it got rested against the car a moment in the driveway while whoever ran inside for a moment—so when the kids and hubby hoisted the thing to bring it inside, a squirrel did burst out of the tree in surprise. Good thing it didn’t head for the open door. We’re pretty sure, although we can’t absolutely know, that we didn’t bring a mountain squirrel home.

Squirrels can be fun to catch. I helped to catch one that got inside the lab, due to one of the professors leaving his window open. He may have also been feeding them. We managed to do it with a board underneath a large beaker. The window was never left open again.