Friday's Contest Winner!

Congratulations to Saleena for sending us the funniest holiday story. Here is what she sent:
"My family will probably never let me forget the Christmas Eve that I caught my hair on fire. It was just last Christmas. We were waiting on company. I decided to light some candles. Then I got a bright idea to set a large one down in the fireplace. While holding the lit candle in my right hand, I bent down to move the grate. I smelled something strange. Hmm. My daughter yelled, "Mom your hair's on fire!" I realize there was a flame on the side of my head! As I'm smacking myself in the head and yelling for my husband to do something, he and my children are laughing so hard that they can't even speak! What help they were! I not only had to put my own flammable hair out, but my sister in law who arrived shortly after, gave me a candle for Christmas! So,as you probably can guess the laughter at my expense started again!"

Thanks Saleena for sharing that funny moment with us (although probably not to you at the time) . We also want to thank all the other people who sent stories as well. There was one other story that was funny and gave us the creeps at the same time. It definitely deserves an honorable mention. We thought we'd share it with you. You'll see what we mean!

Jolanthe wrote:

"Our Story of “Why Fake Trees are the BEST Trees!”

"I grew up with the wonderful tradition of cutting down our own trees…hiking through snow up to our knees in search of that perfect one. When really after 3 hours of cold, wet snow – anything will do. My husband and I decided our first year of marriage to continue in that tradition and envisioned many happy years of visiting the tree farm, or trekking out in the woods to pick out our family tree. So our first Christmas, we decided to visit our local tree farm in search of the perfect tree.

It had been an unusually warm fall/winter season, which should have our first indicator to prepare for some….well, company.

We found a lovely 8 foot tree (since we had vaulted ceilings) and cut the tree, had it shaken (to make sure any dead needles (and possibly critters) fell out, strapped the tree on and traveled home to decorate our beautiful find.

Bliss, I tell you. Pure bliss.

Almost one week went by with our lovely tree fully decorated in our living room, white lights twinkling. One night before I was getting in bed, I saw a strange shadow – almost a flicker, on the wall. It looked like a wisp of smoke. I quickly ran to the tree, searched and sniffed it, but didn’t see any fire.

But I did see a teeny, tiny bug. He was so cute.

And then I saw all of his brothers and sisters emerging from the center of the tree. Hundreds and hundreds of them. Baby praying mantis’ had hatched from our tree and were crawling out to sit and warm on the white lights of the tree.

Sweet, no?

My husband and I quickly yanked all the ornaments and lights off the tree and threw it outside onto the deck and we pulled the vacuum cleaner out to madly suck up all the little critters that were now climbing the walls to our vaulted ceiling – towards the warmer air. We were standing on the back of the couch, trying desperately to reach the ones that were high, high up. Protected species or not, those critters were getting out of my house!

We later found some “safe” pesticides, sprayed the tree down and let it stay nice and cold outside for a few days. We removed the rest of the nest and then brought the tree back inside to decorate it. Again.

Two days later, another nest hatched.

We were pros at stripping a tree, so it landed on the deck in record time and we didn’t even bother taking the lights off this time. We just figured the neighbor’s kids would love the sight and bought new lights.

And a fake tree to go along with them.

Despite the fact that I pictured out family taking an annual trip to the tree farm, we still do make a trip…to our basement. To pull out our beautiful pre-lit 8 foot tree. Which can be put together in less than 5 minutes.

No bugs included."

I have to say that story gave us the creeps but it was funny thinking about you guys trying to strip the tree as fast as you could, TWICE!

We want to thank EVERYONE who participated in our contests this week. We hope you enjoyed them and will check back to our blogs often as we plan on doing more in the future!

Heidi, Kelly, Shannon