By Jacob Williams
Soon after Thanksgiving, it’s time to set up the Christmas tree. A couple of years ago, Gabby Knight found herself in a nightmare.
The Knight family had to go to a different tree farm from where they typically went.
“It seemed like a good place and the trees were really good,” said Knight, who is now a senior.
It started with her older brother Mason seeing an insect on the floor. Mason is afraid of bugs and Gabby went to see what bug it was. But instead of seeing a bug, they saw an insect.
What the siblings saw was a baby praying mantis. After a few minutes had gone by they saw more and more praying mantises. Soon there were thousands.
To end the nightmare Gabby grabbed the vacuum and vacuumed up all of them which took a while till there were none.
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Thud!
Scream.
Sophomore Cameron Deckman didn’t think this would happen. Four to five years ago Cameron heard those sounds, which were caused by a heavily decorated Christmas tree falling on Dae, his little sister.
“Mom came over and picked the tree up and threw it out and kicked the tree,” Deckman said. “We had to stay upstairs because my mom was ‘hulking’.”
After that, they had to go buy another tree and redecorate the tree with the same decorations.
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Head tennis coach Tim Cleland usually doesn’t put up Christmas trees, but when he walked into his small apartment in 1991 he saw a nicely lit fully decorated tree. This was strange because he lived alone and had not put up the tree.
“When I returned home that night, I was shocked to see a fully decorated tree in my living room!” Cleland said.
When senior Cy Nahvi and some other tennis teammates found out that their coach had no Christmas tree, they had to change that. They secretly asked Cleland’s landlord for the key to his apartment and told him their plan.
Then they put up the tree, decorated it, and shocked their coach.
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Imagine spending $30 on a Christmas tree that was supposed to be 20 inches but when it came in the mail you saw an 8-inch Christmas tree. Sophomore RJ Townsend had this happen to her during her eighth-grade year.
“I was like ‘what [happened]’ and I showed it to my mom and she laughed at me,” Townsend said.
RJ wanted to buy another Christmas tree which was 22 inches and cost her $40 more. She didn’t get scammed again and got the last laugh by getting a better Christmas tree.
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Some people say that putting your Christmas tree up before Thanksgiving is too early; the Wine family puts their tree up several weeks before Halloween.
This tradition started when Aaron and Dawn Wine got married. The tree isn’t the only thing they put up on Halloween but they also put up their Nativity. Jennings Wine likes that they put their tree up so early.
“I enjoy it because we don’t really celebrate Halloween,” Jennings said. “We put up the Christmas tree and then we will watch scary movies and eat candy.”
