So last night we're getting all the kids ready for bed - reading stories, brushing teeth, etc. - when my daughter says, "Daddy, that looks yucky," and walks over to the Christmas tree pointing at the trunk. When we look over we see it is covered in little black moving bugs, they're crawling all over each other and completely covering the trunk in about an 8" section.
"Oh gross!" I say, thinking it's ants since we live in California, the state of ants. "It did have a lot of sap, maybe they're attracted to it." Though I've never heard of anything like this before and the tree has been in our house for a month with no ants.
My husband goes to get the bug spray as we start removing ornaments around the infected zone and then we realize there's another section of them up higher, about 7 feet up, completely covered. We look closer at the bugs and we think they're some kind of fly or something but then my husband says, "I think these are ticks."
Suddenly, I feel a little faint, my vision blurs and all I can see is
When I regain my composure, I look closer and confirm that yes, they are in fact ticks.
In an instant, we are pulling ornaments off in a frenzy, piling them in a box before my husband took the tree out, lights and all, into the driveway, where he sprayed it down with bug spray. Then we were frantically vacuuming and cleaning.
The only thing we can figure is that there must have been eggs laid in the tree and they all hatched at the same time. Ugh! I'm shuddering just thinking about it!
The kids were all crying because all of a sudden the tree was gone. Thankfully, it wasn't long before they were distracted, which left Mom as the only person still rattled.
I can only believe that this will make a good story someday. "Remember that one Christmas when we found thousands of ticks all over our Christmas tree?"
So what holiday disasters have you had? With all the family gatherings, elaborate meals, baking, decorating, work parties with copious amounts of alcohol, etc., it is a season ripe for foibles, blunders, and catastrophes.
Come inside and share and commiserate over the things that you have to laugh at or you'll cry.
Happy New Year, everyone!
EDIT: Okay, so after some research I believe that they were a type of aphid, not tick. I hope, anyway. :/ Apparently a lot of people have freaked over these aphids in their Christmas trees because they really do look SO much like ticks. Oh well, there's nothing we can do about it now. *sigh* In any case, get in here and share your holiday disasters!