OT, Oh Oh I tipped the Christmas tree over

Today I came across one of those cubes that you can plug in an outlet and has a switch to control a cord. I thought that would be nice for the Christmas tree lights. Well while I was plugging it in I accidentally pushed the tree over. After a few moments of silence from my wife it looks like I will be putting the decorations back on. The angel on top flew off and now it doesn't light up anymore. I guess that no good deed goes unpunished.
To make this tractor related, I tied the tree to two window cranks with some green tinted baler twine.

Not good.

Vito

I have an image in my head - pretty funny (perhaps not as much for you). I love the baling twine trick! Merry Christmas.

usually one of are cats climb to the top and tip it over,not this year so far.

My sister's cat climbed the tree in the middle of the night and somehow got the light wire wrapped around it's hind foot so tight my BIL had to cut the cord with a scissors. And BIL was in his birthday suit to boot during all of this. Try doing that with a biting, clawing cat! Nobody was happy! Cat was making a racket, BIL was so mad he could spit nails, and Sis was mad at BIL for threatning to use his .44 mag on the cat after it was cut loose.Jim

That should be on America's Funniest Videos!

They'd censor it. My BIL's way of describing it would certainly have been censored. Jim

My wife and I woke up on Sunday morning to our tree almost tipped over.

It was leaning at say about a 10-15 degree angle off plumb. Our dogs sleep in our bedroom so they didn't do it, and we're the only ones here. It's a plastic stand we've got out on loan from a sister-in-law. It's nice & big & stable, but the spike that's supposed to stick in the tree's trunk is kinda rounded over instead of being sharp. Apparantly it's not sticking in at all and it let the tree lean some.

Donovan from Wisconsin

When I was about 5, the house we lived in had originally been a carriage factory/showroom, living quarters upstairs, and had 10' ceilings. Two big picture windows in front where the carriage doors had been, and a big wooden staircase on one side to get upstairs. We always had a tree to fit, and it went up next to the staircase. We also had my first pet, a huge cat named Boots, because he had 7 toes on 3 feet, and 9 on the fourth- did I mention he was huge? So my mom is working on the decorations, on her little 4' household ladder- Boots is on the stairs, and thinks she wants to play- so he launches his 25 lbs into the tree at about the 8' level. Tree starts over, mom grabs the trunk, then the ladder goes over. Ladder's up against the wall, so's mom, with the tree on top, by now Boots is sitting on the floor looking at mom with his best "you dumb human" look. She's threatening him with assorted an sundry forms of torture, mayhem, and death, then yells at me to go get the lady next door. She gets more upset when I take Boots upstairs and hide him, taking her threats very seriously, and in my 5 yr. old wisdom, I locked him in my sister's closet instead of mine, thinking she'd find him too easily in mine, and then went and got the neighbor. About the time we got mom extricated from the wall/tree, my dad came home and started laughing his a$$ off, which redirected mom's venom from Boots to dad- good thing, too, I really loved that cat

I never could get the spike on the bottom to go in straight, etc., so this year I got smart and drilled a hole in the center of the bottom of the trunk- just slipped it over the spike, and presto! Tree stays centered in the stand.

When I was a kid growing up, I went through my father's photo album from when he was in Poland. They and many back then used lit candles on the tree to illuminate them. Was a beautiful picture of lit candles all over it, but even as a kid the first thing that went through my mind was, what if it falls over or gets too dry? And that kind of stuff did happen back then when there were only bucket brigades, certainly not the fire trucks we have today.

Now being of Polish descent and good natured, I could probably make up a good joke here, or wouldn't mind hearing or reading one, because lets face it, I as a Polish person have to admit that I've done some things that could and should have folks chuckling for hours at end. Grin.

Mark

There in lies the other problem. Being a new home owner I really don't have any tools (atleast not power tools yet) at my disposal. At the farm, they're Dad's but they're for around the farm stuff, and it's pretty well equipt. Never had to have my own before, except at work, but those are tools for being a machinst. No drills or anything like that required. I think I remember Dad doing just that with the drill though, so the spike stays in place.

I can't remember if ours actually has one solid spike in the middle, but I think I remember seeing a bunch of smaller ones off center. Not too impressed w/ this stand, but it's probaby going back to the sister in law after the tree comes down.

Donovan from Wisconsin

Here"s how I made my stand- old disc blade, welded the center hole shut with a plate, spike welded to the plate. Drill and tap three holes in a six inch dia pipe about 5 inches long- weld that to the disc blade. Never tips over, easy to center the tree (drill a hole in the tree) and the 3 bolts let you adjust for plumb.

Sounds like National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation over there!