Satanists in the Neighborhood

They come from near and far.  They point.  They talk about "those people".  "How can they flaunt that right in our faces?" they say.

Oh, it's soooo in their faces too - more so than Macy's Christmas Window.

Stay with this story, as it really illustrates something quite important.

Every year on Thanksgiving, we give thanks for the opportunity to get people all worked up for yet another season of merriment - ours.

It all started about eight or nine years ago, when we decided to do something I'd always wanted to do, but never really had an opportunity, since it takes certain circumstances to pull off.  I really wanted to do it because (duh!) we have cats.  At that time we had - Norman, The King of the Christmas Tree.  He took enormous joy in climbing the trunk and popping out near the top, to my continuous chagrin.  I just wanted to best Ol' Norm.  That's all -really.  At least that's how it started.

The ceiling in our living room peaks at about 12', and with about 30' of windows across the front wall where the peak is, that's a lot of windows.  These windows open onto a wide open neighborhood, where we are very visible at night time and have always provided for a beautiful display at Christmastime for the neighborhood.

The beam at the peak of the ceiling provided our opportunity.  We concocted an aparatus with chains by which we could hang the Christmas Tree, rather than sitting it on the floor.  Upside down.

Because, like, why not?

Here's how it happened:  We got the tree up (7.5'), fully lighted, and proceeded to decorate it.  The decorations hung out from the tree like dangly earrings.  How cool!  Every year the decorating has grown - more dangly and interesting ornaments, and, as planned, less cat interference. Another really neat benefit was that it took up NO floor space, giving us a lot more room for the entertaining we like to do.

Well, with the exception of Abby (story here).  Abby uses the Christmas tree like Tarzan's jungle vine.  But that's another story.  Initially Norman (who died at 13 a couple of years after the first upside down tree) was indeed bested by this hanging Christmas Tree.  I definitely won that round of the cat wars - and he seemed to enjoy that I had. There are ornaments on the tree that look like him, so we call it Norman's tree.

This gets better, truly.

Here's what's transpired as a result:   Some neighbors up the street interpreted this upside down Christmas Tree as a clear sign that we are Satanists.  As all rumors do, this spread.

Really. 

And people have come as word has spread.  It's really beautiful from inside and outside, and it's been amazing to us when we've made the comment of our upside down tree, people remark, "Oh! You're the one's with the Satan Tree?"  This has made it back to us numerous times over the years.

Did you know Satan had a tree?  I didn't either.  If people are really that stupid, we are overjoyed to provide them the fodder for their ignorant selves. 

Merry Christmas.  Merry Xmas.  Happy Hannukah.  Happy Kwanza.  Happy Solstice.  Happy Retailers Bonuses.  Happy Cats.  All of it.

But be careful!  Rumor has it, we MUST be Satanists. 

The really frightening part of this story is that it's totally indicative of today's political and social rhetoric - "Facts" based on simple, uneducated assumptions.