sticky sap

Story:
Today I noticed that PKE, a local sorority, had decorated its front door with wrapping paper to make it look like a present.

Rant:
It is November 14. Thanksgiving is still over a week away. I'm very much against Christmas decorations going up so early. This is not wholly directed at you, PKE. Wal-Mart and CVS have their decorations up as well. Oh Christmas, you consumer holiday! It's not surprising though, considering that even the wise men brought Jesus gifts. They brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
Gold, well, is gold. That's a pretty nice present.
Frankincense is a type of incense that comes from a tree. It was also used to make Egyptian eyeliner. Nice smelling makeup is still a good gift.
And myrrh. Well. The Romans used it as an additive in their wines as well as a cover up for the smell of burning corpses. According to a Greek myth later adopted by the Roman poet Ovid, the myrrh tree was created when Myrrha was punished. Myrrha, daughter of either Theias or Cinyras (Ovid), was in love with her father and slept with him. She became pregnant and bore Adonis of all people after turning into a tree. Adonis was the most beautiful man that ever lived, which says something really weird about incest if you stop to think about it.
But backtrack another second. Myrrha was punished for wanting what you can't have. The wise men gave Jesus myrrh. Is this a subtle message that we want what we can't have!?!?! That's a little too philisophical/theological for my taste, but it just seemed interesting.
On a last interesting side note, Myrrha also appears in Dante suffering from rabies. How she got rabies is unknown, especially since she is a tree, but it's worth mentioning.

That was a long rant that really didn't have much to do with Christmas.