I never understood my mother’s dread of the woods until this Christmas.
Christmas has always been my favorite time of the year, and I consider myself somewhat of an expert at “decking the halls.” Since I was a kid, I would wake up early on Black Friday to string garlands, hang lights, and meticulously arrange little figurines of elves and Santa Claus around the house. This always concerned my parents greatly, who did not care for this time of the season. Their disdain always puzzled me, especially given that my mother had immigrated from Germany, a place renowned for its incredible Christmas celebrations, as a child.
Despite their chronic Grinchism, Mom always gritted her teeth and allowed me to partake in the season with one caveat: no Christmas tree. I accepted this bargain without hesitation, for my mother’s fear of trees was well known to the whole family and not for entirely unfounded reasons.
When my mother was a child, she and her younger sister awoke early one Christmas morning to a picturesque winter wonderland. The window panes were frosty and fluffy, and new-fallen snow covered the ground.
They snuck out of their rooms and were dazzled by all the presents under the glittering Christmas tree. They stood momentarily, holding hands, entranced by the golden spectacle. Despite their overwhelming urge to start opening the gifts, the order from their parents had been clear: wait to go outside and open gifts until their parents awoke. By the thunderous sound of their father’s snoring from their parent’s bedroom, they could tell they would not rise for several hours.
Minutes passed, then hours, as the girls grew increasingly bored and impatient – the gifts taunting them from under the tree. They decided to collect chestnuts from the nearby grove to pass the time. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire certainly would lessen their parent’s anger for disobeying them. They bundled up and began shuffling through the powdery snow towards the treeline.
The grove was just beyond a dark thicket of woods. The bare boughs of the trees creaked as they swayed in the wind. Many people were lost in the black forest yearly. While many knew the woods were just naturally hazardous and full of beasts and hazards, many local folktales claimed the trees would occasionally come alive to snatch up wanderers. The girls clutched each other tightly and bravely walked through until they finally emerged from the shadowy woodlands and into the bright grove.
My mother collected chestnuts while my aunt was more preoccupied with running around trying to instigate a game of hide and seek. Feeling a bit tight-strung from disobeying their parents, my mother was not in the mood to play.
“Come, play with me, Ada!” my aunt squealed as she ducked behind a large, dark spruce tree at the grove’s edge.
“Will you come back here already, Emilia!?” My mother yelled. “They’ll be awake soon!”
My mother threw down her pail and huffed over, but her sister was gone. Her frustration turned to panic as she screamed her sister’s name but received no response. She had vanished without a trace, leaving only behind her red scarf in the snow at the base of the massive spruce tree.
My mother returned home to their parents, cheeks red and blistered, sobbing and clutching my aunt’s red scarf. Her parents, relieved that one of their missing daughters had returned home, wiped the tears from my mother’s eyes and asked her what happened. Through her sobs, she could only choke out, “The Trees ate her!”
My grandparents never found out what happened to their youngest daughter but harbored a deep resentment towards their eldest until their deaths. This ordeal left my mother deeply scarred and with a lingering nervousness around trees.
But this is my year finally. My husband and I bought our first home, and I can now go full send on Christmas – tree and all. We picked out a handsome spruce and set it in the corner of our living room, and it felt like a real Christmas for once.
That evening, I was shutting the lights off in the living room before bed. I unplugged the soft white lights wrapped around the tree. As I left the room, I heard a rustling behind me. I turned and found the tree had moved several feet from its original spot towards me. It hadn’t fallen or tipped over; instead, it stood straight up with a shower of fallen spruce needles trailing the floor behind it.
I shimmied it back into place and went to leave the room again, but as I passed under the doorway, I heard a loud rustling again. I quickly flipped on the overhead light and spun around, but the tree remained in the same spot. My husband called me from the other room and asked what I was doing. I shook my head, cut off the light, and went to bed.
Our dog, Frances, woke me the following morning with a soft whimper. He was shaking and had his tail tucked between his legs. It was unusual, but I figured he desperately needed to go for a walk. Upon hearing me say “walk,” he calmed down slightly, so I went into the living room to grab my walking shoes from the closet. I sat on the couch, slipped my shoes on, and called Frances so I could fasten his harness, but he refused to enter the living room.
I found him cowering in my room, refusing to leave. I got frustrated, so I grabbed him by the collar and dragged him into the living room. He was fixed on the tree and softly growled and yipped. I got his harness on before realizing I had forgotten the bags, so I went to the kitchen for a moment to grab some.
I was only gone for a moment, but from across the house, I heard a sharp yelp from Frances – like someone had stepped on his tail. When I returned to the living room, the dog was nowhere to be found. I searched the house high and low but found nothing except his collar underneath the Christmas tree. I picked it up, rushed into our bedroom, and woke my husband.
He insisted we search the neighborhood for Frances, but I knew it was useless. The tree did something to him. I insisted we toss it, but my husband insisted I was being “hysterical.”
“Come on, tomorrow is Christmas,” he said. “We’ll keep it one more day, then get rid of it.”
I reluctantly agreed but felt uneasy all day and never once turned my back on the tree. That night, I went to sleep with a pit in my stomach.
I woke in the early hours of the morning to a piney smell. Panicked, I threw on the lights. The tree hunched over my husband, and the soft smacking sound of chewing echoed off the walls. The tree seemed startled and looked at me after I switched on the light.
My husband’s legs dangled out of the tree’s mouth, a vast, grinning maw with bright red lips and human-like teeth, having already been half consumed by the thing. It bit down, severing my husband’s legs at the knee and sending a spray of blood down onto our off-white sheets.
It licked its lips, and its grin widened as it slowly and quietly teeter-tottered over to me around the foot of the bed. I seized my moment, rolling over my husband’s severed legs and landing on the wooden floor. I dashed but tripped on the carpet, sailed into the hallway, and slammed into the drywall. I was dazed for a moment, and the tree pounced on me. I could feel its cartoonishly huge teeth chewing on my leg and sucking me down into its gullet.
Before it could eat me whole, I grabbed the topmost branch that stuck upwards and snapped it off. It softly whimpered and released me just long enough for me to wrest myself free and run into the living room. I rummaged through the closet and grabbed a massive can of bug spray and a lighter. The monster loomed behind me as I quickly whipped around, flicked the lighter, and sprayed the Christmas tree with my homemade flamethrower. It erupted in flame, its sap crackling and shaking violently back and forth.
I had accidentally set the drapes on fire, and the room quickly filled with smoke. I crawled to the door and tumbled out just as I ran out of breath. I slammed the door behind me for good measure.
I sat on the front lawn and watched my house become engulfed in flames. The deaths of my husband and dog quickly overshadowed my gratitude for having survived the ordeal. I wept and cried out and cursed the trees. Through tears, I watched the trees rustling in the hazy distance beyond the fire, unsure if they were closer than I remembered before.