When Holiday Trees Attack

My community (well, Lansing, anyway) has this long-running tradition about bickering about the state's Holiday Tree. That is, the tree they erect and decorate in front of the Capitol building each and every year. Officially, I believe it's a "holiday tree," but so many humorless Christians argue that it is actually a Christmas tree and that the State of Michigan is, I don't know, godless or something. I don't know. What I do know is that bringing greenery inside during the winter months is a pagan thing appropriated by Christians who wished to integrate Solstice with Christmas towards the purpose of "converting the heathens." Thing is, people do still celebrate the Solstice, and the State cannot legally favor Christians over "heathens." Since the tree can represent both Christmas and Solstice, it must be a Holiday Tree. Because "Christmas-Solstice Tree" is quite a mouthful, and runs the risk of offending somebody else whose alternative holiday may or may not be represented by said tree. The debate goes on, but I am sticking with the term "Holiday Tree." There, that's done.

Before reading on, be warned. There may be spoilers ahead.

Now, I'm not positive, but after reading MARVEL HOLIDAY SPECIAL 2005, and GREAT LAKES AVENGERS GLX-MAS, I am sensing the emergence theme. An attack tree theme. In the Holiday Special, there seems to be a general consensus that Santron stole the show. It is my belief that he stole the show from Dr. Strange's shapeshifting bloodtree. His holiday shapeshifting bloodtree, the one that takes the form of a particularly ravenous fir, attempts to eat both The Wasp and She-Hulk before being muzzled by Spiderman's webbing.

The hungry bloodtree is, oddly enough, not the only tree tamed by decorations this year. In GLX-MAS, Dr. Tannenbaum's evil attack trees also find themselves weighed down and defeated by ornaments and tinsel.

I have no idea whether there are attack trees in the Punisher's Christmas special, but I would not bet against it. (If Castle rigs one to explode or something, let me know. Because then we'd truly have a pattern, here.)

There is probably a lesson to be learned here: If you are putting up a holiday tree, do as the Doorman says, and "trim like you've never trimmed before!"

So it begins...

Lately, I've been teaching myself to plan, to budget, and to schedule. I've always sucked at those things. Always. Granted, I'm learning to do this on a small scale, first. A very small scale. Want to know how, exactly? Comic books. Seriously. I am a relatively recent convert, a newbie fangirl to the medium. That's not to say I never read comics before. I practically grew up on the daily strips (Calvin and Hobbes, The Far Side, Doonesbury and, to a lesser extent, Bloom County and Pogo.) but never ventured into the monthly superhero mags.

So, I've been keeping a weekly schedule, deciding what to pull (I have an actual pull list now, if you can imagine.), figuring out how much I'm spending a week, trying to keep it within certain limits, deciding what's worth reading... Well, okay, it sounds lame, but like I said. I suck at this. So this is a good habit to learn, and boy does it make my Wednesdays rewarding! It really does. I have something to look forward to every week. Never had that before, not really. (Depression-anxiety thing. You know how it is.)

Maybe if I can keep up a comic book pull schedule, I can keep up a blog. I have a few aborted attempts out there. Maybe this one will actually stick. Maybe next post (and there will be one, gods willing) will contain more than ramblings.

Maybe.