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Two seasons down, two to go. That can only mean one thing: It’s Christmas tree time! In this house, the decorations go up as soon as Halloween is over and I honestly never really stop watching Christmas movies at any point during the year. Nope, it’s a year round predictable Hallmark-style movie fest around here. The cheesier, the better. Which is why I love the fact that I got to write about Tannenbaum! Gave me a good excuse to listen to the episode a few times well before most people in my vicinity had even started thinking about getting their decorations from the attic. Can anyone blame me though? It’s about a lethal Christmas tree, guys!

Just like with Jane and Levi trying to get a cat for Ryan, this adventure has a pretty innocent start. Levi gets Ryan and Jane a Christmas tree. That’s it. So sweet of him. He even decorated it himself! With fossilized space-bunny eyeballs, no less. Yeah, so swee…Well, it’s the thought that counts, right?

There’s virgin eggnog, mentions of Rudolph and caroling and for a second, you’re naïve enough to think that maybe, just maybe, this is going to be it. Just our fictional fam celebrating their own version of Christmas and helping each other with possible feelings of seasonal homesickness. For one beautiful moment, all is merry and bright on the station.

And then the tree starts growing.

And growing.

And growing!

And then the nurses start disappearing in what is now basically a Christmas tree jungle. Why in the holy night can’t we ever just have normal plants around here?

It gets even more playfully dark from then on, as they start threatening it and Levi gets “eaten” by the carnivorous plant. No Audrey II, I’m not talking about you yet, honey. Go sit back down. In other news, at one point Jane calls the deadly tree beautiful. Hmm, a deadly but beautiful thing. Where have we seen that before, Jane?

With the station becoming more and more like a killer forest, it’s mostly still all fun and games until they’re all taken and bonded and we hear the tree say/think ‘I trust you, human’. Not to be dramatic but damn! Because that’s a big part of life, isn’t it? Just trusting random humans, something that would be so much less scary to do if we could just read other people’s minds. Then again, judging from Jane’s no doubt lasting scars due to experiencing the gang’s unfiltered and not always PG-13 thoughts, looking into that possibility might not be worth the trouble. I’m not looking for crazy cheese cravings outside of my holiday movie choices, thank you Gruyère-y much … I’ll see myself out.

In my opinion though, that’s what this episode is ultimately all about: the complexity and beauty of humanity. We’re not perfect, but we try. So give yourself a pat on the back, grab a cup of cocoa and settle in for this green special.