Christmas draws near, and yesterday, I took advantage of me-being-on-vacation-oh-hooray to go do some last minute shopping. The Internet took care of most of my gift-buying this year, and it's certainly the easier option, but I kinda feel like I have to go shopping out somewhere at least once during the holiday season. You know...go to a mall, see a crappy Santa, drop a buck in a Salvation Army spittoon...it's all part of the process.

I did that yesterday, and quickly remembered why online shopping is so attractive to me in the first place. I wouldn't say that I'm totally agoraphobic, but I would say that shopping alone tends to give me shingles. My mind wanders to the worst and stupidest places. Like, I'm at the Woodbridge Mall in Jersey, and one of my contact lenses started acting up. Nothing major, but I spent a good hour staring at the floor because I was positive that it looked like I was crying. So there I was, bumping into people and poles all over the mall, all because I didn't want people to think I was some guy in a long black coat sobbing his way through the fucking Woodbridge Mall, ALONE. I'm sure these are everyday trials for everyday people, but this sort of thing seems to happen to me very often. Me mudda never loved me.

Oh well. All part of the holiday tradition. Another part of the holiday tradition is the Christmas tree, so, how about that segue?

Over the weekend, we went to a couple of different "tree yards." Where I live, the places where one can buy a Christmas tree are mighty eclectic. Some of the "stores" are converted garden centers. Others are legit backyards modified for a Yuletide purpose. I even saw one guy operating out of what I swear was a construction site experiencing downtime. Every tree was held upright by cinderblocks, and there were big giant saws everywhere.

I'm pretty particular about my tree. I don't want it too big, but I don't want one of those baby trees that come in silver pots with recipes for rosemary chicken -- WAIT THAT'S NOT A CHRISTMAS TREE, IT'S A ROSEMARY BUSH CUT LIKE ONE! I don't mind if the tree is misshapen or whatever, because that's kind of Charlie Browny, but I hate that sort of bluish hue a lot of trees seem to have nowadays. If I wanted a blue tree, I'd go to Toys 'R' Us and spend ten bucks on the pre-decorated one that comes with all of the Power Rangers ornaments.

We hit a few places and found nothing, but on a final run (one of those runs where you actually drive home, stay in the car and say "FUCK IT I'M GOING BACK OUT!"), we hit the goldmine. Incredibly enough, it was at the same nursery that hosted that Halloween Playland thing back in October.

After scouring their generous selection of trees and being really happy that they were all twenty bucks cheaper than everywhere else's trees, we narrowed it down to a few beauties and prepared to, as they say, "call the guy over." Then I noticed all of these signs telling us to "go left" if we wanted to see a nativity with live animals. I don't think I ever went left faster in my life.

The nativity scene was, uh, interesting. Maybe it's just because I was coming off of a church's nativity where everything had to be primped and proper, but I swear, the camels looked straight out of a Hanna-Barbera cartoon, all with crude black painted smirks and neon pink feet and stuff. Also, the statues (plastic statues that lit up) were obviously from a bunch of different sets, lest anyone believe the Virgin Mary had a hundred pounds on the Three Wise Men.

They delivered as promised with the live animals. When my friends and I busted into the church manger the other night, we had it made. Here, I had children punching me in the balls because I was diverting the attention of their llamas. The animals themselves were of a different disposition than the ones at the church, apparently very used to soliciting large crowds for handouts. These were party manger animals. Running, frolicking, smiling-for-the-camera kind of animals. It's pretty neat to think that I met two llamas in two different places in the same week, and they were complete polar opposites.

Strangely, near the big pen full of animals were small cages stuffed with rabbits and roosters. The rabbit cage seemed adequate, but man, those roosters were setting the Guinness record for stepping in their own shit. Seemed kind of wrong, really, but I prefer to think that by nightfall, the place's owners set the roosters up in some kind of posh rooster penthouse, where they have marble floors, A-grade seed and all the chickens they can fuck.

Oh yeah, the tree:

We haven't had a chance to actually put ornaments on the thing yet, but for some reason, I'm digging it without ornaments. That's not like me. I guess it's just been a subdued year overall, and a tree without a hundred Starburst-flavored candy canes on it feels right.

Then again, if you look close, you'll notice a Boglin serving as our tree topper. I'm just a big stupid liar.

Posted by Matt on 12/20/2006. E-mail me!