Leaning Tower of Christmas Tree is Upright and Decorated!

This year brought a bit of excitement with our Christmas tree. We found a brand new tree stand in our basement that had never even been taken out of the box...an innovative design that should easily allow you to straighten your tree and lock it in place without screwing and unscrewing. Filled with excitement, we took our stand to the tree lot, found a beautiful 9 foot very full Frazier fir, and for the first time, had them cut off the end and some lower branches and put it in the stand. "Wow, this is great" we thought as we proudly got it in the house, leveled it, and latched it in place with our new handy, dandy base. Using a ladder, I put our 5 strands of white lights on, filled the base with water, and headed to bed with a plan for all of us to put the ornaments on the next day.

Well, the next morning as everyone else was sleeping, I heard a "creaking" sound and looked over to find our tree slowly falling to the left! I ran over, barely being able to hold it up, but managing to break it's fall. The problem was, no one else was  awake, and I couldn't let it go to go get someone. I stood there holding it and pondering my dilemma for about 5 minutes, until my arm was killing me. Finally, I decided to just lean it very heavily against the wall and go get Nick for help. Upon inspection, he discovered that our new plastic innovative tree stand had a fatal flaw...plastic teeth that bend and break under the weight of a big tree (even though the stand clearly says it's for a tree up to 10 feet!).

Oh no...will we now have to empty the water out, go buy a new stand, and somehow transfer this big tree??? It looked that way, so we headed out in search of a new stand. After hitting 3 stores and calling another, there were no tree stands to be found for trees over 8 feet. So on the way home, Ernie's engineering mind kicked in and he came up with a plan to try to use our current stand. He disappeared into the basement and came up with big screws, some blocks of wood and a drill. Unfortunately Nick and I were holding the tree while he was drilling, so I didn't take any pictures of him laying on the floor in action, but viola  it seemed to work! I gave it 24 hours before adding any ornaments to be sure it was still standing and it passed the test! I am always thankful for Ernie's ability to think outside the box and re-engineer things to work better. We are now decorated for Christmas and our tree is still standing nice and straight and tall! I love my handyman and the fact that he is beginning to be able to return to such tasks as these.

The Queen of Sheba, my mother's black persian, hiding under the tree

Christmas is our favorite time of year and I particularly love the beauty of different nativities depicting Jesus's birth. Here are some of the ones I have acquired through the years, some little, some big, some handmade, some from different countries, some for grown ups, some for children, but each of them a treasure to me because of what they represent.

Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you; you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. Luke 2:11-12

Our stockings are hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas soon will be here! Praying that each of you has a very Merry Christmas!