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I grew up with the wonderful tradition of cutting down our own trees…hiking through snow up to our knees in search of that perfect one.
When really after 3 hours of cold, wet snow – anything will do.
Rick and I decided our first year of marriage to continue in that tradition and envisioned many happy years of visiting the tree farm, or trekking out in the woods to pick out our family tree. So our first Christmas, we decided to visit our local tree farm in search of the perfect tree.
It had been an unusually warm fall/winter season, which should have our first indicator to prepare for some….well, company. We found a lovely 8 foot tree and cut the tree, had it shaken to make sure any dead needles {and possible critters} fell out, strapped the tree onto our car and traveled home to decorate our beautiful find.
Bliss, I tell you. Pure bliss.
Almost one week went by with our lovely tree fully decorated in our living room, white lights twinkling. One night before I was getting in bed, I saw a strange shadow – almost a flicker, on the wall. It looked like a wisp of smoke. I quickly ran to the tree, searched and sniffed it, but didn’t see any fire.
But I did see a teeny, tiny bug. So very cute.
And then I saw all of his brothers and sisters emerging from the center of the tree. Hundreds and hundreds of them. Baby praying mantis’ had hatched from our tree and were crawling out to sit and warm on the white lights of the tree.
Sweet, no?
My husband and I quickly yanked all the ornaments and lights off the tree and threw it outside onto the deck and we pulled the vacuum cleaner out to madly suck up all the little critters that were now climbing the walls to our vaulted ceiling – towards the warmer air. We were standing on the back of the couch, trying desperately to reach the ones that were high, high up. Protected species or not, those critters were getting out of my house!
We later found some “safe” pesticides, sprayed the tree down and let it stay nice and cold outside for a few days. We removed the rest of the nest and then brought the tree back inside to decorate it. Again.
Two days later, another nest hatched.
We were pros at stripping a tree, so it landed on the deck in record time and we didn’t even bother taking the lights off this time. We just figured the neighbor’s kids would love the sight and bought new lights and a pre-cut tree that year.
Despite the fact that I pictured our family taking an annual trip to the tree farm, we now make an annual trip…to our basement. To pull out our beautiful pre-lit 8 foot tree. Which can be put together in less than 5 minutes.
No bugs included.
