The Christmas Spider
She still says it was her favorite place of everywhere we’ve lived. -- 'An Einganeer's Tale', page 63
I especially remember the Christmases we had in Oklahoma. There was the first time our family saw snow on Christmas. It was also the first time we actually went out and cut down our own Christmas tree. I just learned that finding a spider in your tree is suppose to bring good luck to your family, I wish I knew that at the time.
The story goes that once there was a poor family living in a small hut who grew a pine tree out of the earthen floor of their home to have a Christmas tree. When Christmas Eve arrived, however, they were too poor to decorate it and so the children went to bed sad. The next morning, they awoke to find that a spider had decorated the entire tree with his own tinsel. When they opened a nearby window, the sunlight turned its webbing into a glistening display of silver and gold. The children were so happy and the family had the best Christmas ever.
Well, our story was different. My company did pay well enough for us to meticulously decorate the tree we spent a day searching for, sawing down, trimming, and erecting in front of the big window of our giant, sunken living room. But we awoke the next morning, not to natural tinsel, but to billions of teeny tiny spiders floating all around and covering everything in sight. The tree was quickly thrown out the front door, decorations and all.
We still had a great Christmas. But, there must be a moral there somewhere.