Tikkabik

Christmas lights on trees is a tradition that dates back to 17th century Germany -- first with melted candles put on branches of the tannenbaum. As usual, with any tradition that lasts hundreds of years, it's evolved over time, and now it's fairly common -- even in warm weather climates like Southern Florida and Southern California -- to see outdoor trees strung with lights.

Sometimes tree lights are tastefully done, sometimes they're garishly done, and sometimes they're done just downright wrong.

For example, I have never understood people who string lights on deciduous trees. Why? The whole idea is to celebrate the evergreen beauty of the mighty fir tree. Deciduous trees are dead this time of year.

Bonnie and I have developed a description of the lights often strung on these trees in a globular fashion, orbiting the outside perimeter of the foliage -- giant amoebas.

The weirdest variations on these are floating amoebas that have another string of lights wrapped around the trunk of the tree. Especially when the homeowner gets fancy and decided to install the flashing fuse as well. Then you've got this giant amoeba that looks like it's extended a pseudopod to the ground and is sucking energy from the Earth. It's like something out of a B-grade horror movie.

The other weird Christmas decoration is the string of lights wrapped tightly around the trunk and branches of a deciduous tree, because more often than not this ends up looking like some gargantuan demonic claw bursting forth from the ground, ready to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting populace.

These are the thoughts that haunt me this time of year.