A Green Family Christmas Story (Green as in the Incredible Hulk?)

As I began my college internment I found that suddenly my Christmas season was horrifically slashed in a way that would make Jason Voorhees gape in astonishment. Before college I had at least a month of Christmas cheer besieging my senses, now I find it only lasting the brief period between the semesters, that two week period existing in the thin paradisiacal slice of reprieve from the mentally violent demands of the professors. I am married now so I thought that maybe this year I could attempt to extend that feeling of Christmas with decorations, the kind that go in a house.

We went to a store called Mich, which apparently used to be Michaels until they decided it was classier to leave the “aels” lights burnt out on the front of their store. There we thought to indulge our season’s appetites on tinsel, mistletoe, holly, and all the trippings and trappings our baskets could carry. Turns out Michs also decided it was classier to not have many Christmas decorations. So we ended up getting some lights and a broken wreath. Slightly dejected we returned home with thoughts of icicle lights, tinsel and fake snow filling our minds hoping that maybe, if we thought about it hard enough, there would be a Christmas Miracle. We put up are fake tree that night. It stood a pathetic 8 inches tall and in spite of being a fake tree had managed to turn brown. We grabbed some dead branches from outside and hung them about the apartment in hopes that it would appear garland-ish, it did not. In fact, it looked very much like dead branches. We went to bed that night wondering what we had done to anger the Santa deities.

Early the next morning Annie and I woke up for another day of no Christmas cheer. Something was different though. Neither of us could tell what exactly had changed, maybe something in the air or maybe it was something inside of us that spoke of endless adventure and countless gumdrops. Then suddenly I remembered the old poem about the night before Christmas and I quickly threw open the sash. Unfortunately we did not have a sash and I had merely thrown a potted planted across the room. My mind raced, what could be different, what was this feeling that we felt and more importantly who put it there? Was it a super spy or maybe it was Superman, or maybe it was something entirely different like the incredible Hulk.

TO BE CONTINUED.....