Special Guest Blogger: Saint Boniface

When the average person thinks of a Catholic saint, i would venture to guess that it’s not a fearless, axe-wielding, hammer-breaking, oak-crushing, converter of pagans that comes to mind. And yet, that’s exactly the kind of guy i was.
In the early part of the 8th century, the Catholic Church wanted a hardass to go up against the Heathens Thor, that's the God of Thunder Thor if you please, and they looked in my direction.
I was sent into Germany as a missionary, with an aim of converting the pagans to Christianity and back in the pagan day, all inanimate objects were fair game for worship. Rocks, mountains, funny shaped sticks, whatever but some of them got it in their heads to worship a thunder god named Thor by ritualistically sacrificing humans and animals at the tree they designated 'Thor's Oak'.
I was working tirelessly in the country destroying idols and pagan temples and building churches in their place and using my Christian marketing pitch of 'Hey you pagans with your orgies and different positions, you take off your clothes for sex! Gross, right? Now, let me tell you about Jesus ... and it worked fine until one Winter Solstice when i happened across a group of pagans worshiping an old oak tree they called the Thunder Tree and before it a child about to be sacrificed to their false God.
Now if there is one thing the Catholic Church frown upon it is untoward behaviour towards minors so i grabbed the nearest conveniently placed axe and saying something cool like 'You are for the chop', i hacked down the tree, calling to the pagans to see the power of my God over theirs and a fir tree grew spontaneously in the oak's place.
The next year all the pagans in the area had been converted to Christianity and hung candles, nuts, cheese and apples from the tree to celebrate what they now called Christmas rather than Winter Solstice.
The legend spread and soon Christmas trees became the norm in the newly converted Bavaria, and then spread out to become the tradition of using an evergreen tree to celebrate the birth of Jesus and the tinsel strewn bauble hanging festival we know today and it's thanks to me that we have a tree in the corner of our room and not the dismembered remains of a human sacrifice.
I was later killed by a group of pagan's who were not so keen on me putting a stop to their orgies and Thor worship but by then i had introduced the concept of the tree so next time when you drag the dirty outdoors through your home, scratching floors, knocking over furniture and leaving a wake of pine needles that'll be showing up in the most random places until April, you have me to thank.