A Spiderman Christmas?

That's what we almost had...
See it all began with a harmless school field trip to a cute little tree farm. The owner of the tree farm invites the preschoolers to come to his farm and pick out a tree for their school. He also allows parents to pick and tree on his lot no matter the size for $10. What a deal!! Every year we get a Noble, but this year with money being tight we couldn't pass up such a great offer. So we bundled the kids and headed out for the field trip. Alissa was so very excited to pick our family tree. She immediately latched on the the tree you see her standing by in the picture below.
Lucky for us it wasn't huge or we were heading for a Griswold Christmas. It was the perfect size and cute as can be...we found our tree!!! The nice tree farmer cut it down for us and Matt strapped it on the van. Mission accomplished!! Until we got it home.. that's when the fun began.
So Matt trimmed up the tree and got it in its stand and we put it in a place of honor in our living room. I went out to the garage and got our ornament box and the lights and we all gathered round the tree for the best part - decorations!
This is when I stared lovingly at the tree and noticed something was amiss. As in.. the tree was moving. Weird. I got a little closer and saw a pretty good size black spider had crawled to the edge of a branch. MATT! I called.. SPIDER!! In comes daddy my spider mooshing hero to save the day. But wait, come back! Another one!! It all goes downhill from here. You see.. after he mooshed the first 3, the rest of them came out of hiding. As soon as I lost count I told Matt to put the tree outside...QUICK. And he did.
Ok...time to regroup.. Alissa is in a bit of a panic -- MY TREE MY TREE! Why is it outside? I try to explain that there were a few spiders and we didn't want them getting all over the house so we put it outside. At this point what does any good mom do?? I hit the internet! I needed some serious advice... how do you rid a Christmas tree of spiders? Now let me explain something.. these spiders were not all of the same species.. we had big ones, little ones, red ones, black ones, tiny baby ones..getting the picture? Yep..it was a Spiderman Christmas tree.
So the net.. not at all useful. Basically the only advice was to use a vacuum if you found a spider or two..well, we did NOT have a spider or two...we had an infestation. But again, I'm a good mommy so I lug the tree back inside and plop it on the kitchen floor. No spiders in sight...but I have learned from this experience that the spiders do not crawl out to the edge of the branches until they warm up a bit. Lovely. About 15 minutes later out come my spidy friends and I start suckin them up. After a few, I decide this is just too creepy and put the tree back outside. It is getting late and getting cold, I know it will be well under freezing that night so I have a brilliant (haha) idea..I hose down the tree and let it freeze! That'll teach those spiders who's boss!!
The next morning I shake the now melted water off the tree and drag it inside. 15 minutes later...no spiders. I feel triumphant for the next 5 minutes until the little buggers start to creep out again. Ok..plan A and B didn't work. Time for plan C - the tree went back into the backyard, I bundled up the kids.. and headed for a different tree farm. Problem solved.
And that my dear friends and family.. is the story of how we almost had a Spiderman Christmas. There is a moral here - Always check your tree for spiders before putting on your decorations.. you just never know when you too might have a Spiderman Christmas.
The End.