So, my family is old school Baltimore, hon. My family is also very superstitious, and a lot of their superstitions are so weird and uncommon that I was sure they were just totally made up. One is that no one in the family is allowed to take down the Christmas tree before January 10th, which my family calls "Little Christmas." I have no idea why-- and neither do they, frankly. I've never heard of "Little Christmas" before. Wiki turned up this, which makes some amount of sense, given that my family has Irish roots, though it lists "Little Christmas" as Jan. 6th. Anyhow, you couldn't take down the tree early, or ~~bad things would happen.~~

(For the record, this article mentions this; "Leave the decorations up until January 6. In Ireland, it's considered bad luck to take the holiday trimmings down before Little Christmas.")

Anyhow, one year, my stepdad picked a real dud of a tree. On Christmas morning, it barely had any needles left! Convinced it was a fire hazard, he got rid of it the next day, despite protests from my mom and from my Aunt Mary, who lived across the street.

Within two months, both of my grandparents were dead, each following freak accidents. My grandmother had a heart attack during a home invasion at her apartment complex on January 5th. Not long after, my grandfather had fallen and died on his balcony.

My Aunt, to this day, will not speak to my stepfather, as she firmly believes he "killed [her] parents." Well, technically, she doesn't speak to any of us now, but that's a different squabble. The last Christmas I visited her, she was telling the story of how Adrian killed her mother (!). She has one of those tacky holiday doorbell things that plays a different Christmas carol at random whenever someone rings it.

Just as she finished telling the story, the doorbell went off and started playing "O Holy Night," my grandmother's favorite carol. When I went to the door, no one was there.