Oh My God! The Tree Fainted!

So back to the tree stories....  As we gained a larger home and more space, we brought in one or two balled trees.  The space for a tree in the main living room was large and there was no way we could find a balled tree large enough or enough people to carry it in.  We had to decide if we wanted to plant a tree in the living room and cut a hole in the ceiling or switch to a fresh cut tree.  The fresh cut tree won, but not before fighting one heck of a battle.

We love our fresh cut trees.  The smell of fresh pine in the house at Christmas is unique.  As the number of ornaments grew so did the size of our trees.  Besides that, "Doc" keeps picking them BIGGER AND BIGGER!  The first year we put up a larger tree, we brought it in, set it up and it was gorgeous!  All the lights and ornaments sparkled.  We went to bed for those sugar plums dancing in our heads.  When out in the living room I heard such a clatter!  Okay, bad take on the poem but I did hear a loud crash that woke me up and believe me it takes a lot to wake me up!  I distinctly remember thinking, "I hope "Mommy" just fell over the railing and that it isn't the tree.  We can fix her!"

"Doc" and I jumped out of bed and found that the tree had indeed fainted.  I cried a little because I lost some of the ornaments that hung on my grandmother's tree.  We stood it back up and watched it carefully.  In the morning, "Doc" noticed that it seemed to be leaning again.  At lunchtime he came home with ropes and the next thing I knew we had secured the tree to beams in the house.  It is bad enough when this happens once, but the next year we had a larger tree and a repeat incident.  I fooled the tree though, I had put my grandparents' ornaments in a crystal dish.  But anyway, the ropes came out again and the tree was tied up!  This year we got a little more creative and hung ornaments from the ropes.  I especially remember Santa in camouflage parachuting.

By year three, we thought we could outsmart the tree.  We put the tree in a corner and got a new tree stand.  Don't you know that it toppled again!  It did lean toward the corner though averting horrible disasters!  Alright, now what because our trees are getting BIGGER every year.  It must be the tree stand!  So "Doc" combines heads with "Mommy's" future father in law.  These two together came up with a plan and built the "Tree Stand from Hell".  It is solid steel and takes three to four men to bring it into the house, which is perfect because it now takes three to four men to bring our tree into the house! 

I must admit, we have not had a tree fall since we got our super stand!  But there are plenty of tree stories coming!