Yesterday, I covered a story in Deer Creek and passed a couple Christmas tree lots on Vaughn Road. On the way back, I stopped at one and talked with Montgomery native Aduston Rogers, who owns and operates the farm across from Aldersgate UMC.

We have a nicer smaller fake tree that we've used here for five years. Standing next to rows of Fraser Firs, though, at Rogers' lot, I started having tree envy. Mentally, I rearranged my living room to open a large enough space for the good-smelling, nothing-can-replace-it real Christmas tree.

Later, when we went to my parents house to watch the Iron Bowl, my mother gladly let me go up into the attic and "borrow" one of her old tree stands. She, of course, has a high-end larger taller slimmer pre-lit fake tree from Southern Homes & Gardens. She sweetly didn't remind me what a mess I might be getting into with this "real tree!" obsession. I very well remember...

Back when I was still in grammar school, we lived in northern Virginia and always got not only real Christmas trees, but ones with the roots in a burlap sack so we'd plant them in on our acreage after the holiday. A couple days after we'd brought a huge tree in one year and decorated it, something happened that my mother still isn't over: a bat awoke from within the tree and took flight all over the vaulted living room, confused at the angles up there... zipping this way and that. My mother squealed (it's the only time I've ever heard her squeal) and ran to the safety of the kitchen yelling for dad. My father assessed the situation with a laugh, grabbed a tennis racket, managed to hit/stun the creature and carefully take it outside. (I think if his daughters weren't watching, the options for the bat might have been less humane.) Mother was pretty upset, shocked mostly, and she just stood there staring at the tree saying "a bat's been in there all this time?"

While searching the interior of the tree for any remaining intruders, dad informed her that in German, the word for bat is "fledermaus," or flying mouse, which sounds sweet and sing-song. Mother barked, "it's a bat."

To this day, if you say the word "fledermaus," she grimaces. Fun for the whole family.