OK, for many years Greg and I have had this ongoing conversation – every Christmas – about how I overload the tree so much that it leans. It leans because I put more ornaments on the sides people can see.
Well, over the years Greg and I have come up with some ingenious ways to stabilize the tree. OK, truth be told, Greg has come up with them and I’ve pretty much just copied them.
At the moment the stand is bolted onto a 4 by 4 wooden base. I did that myself, just for the record, although it was copied after one Greg did years ago.
This year the tree has been leaning much worse because it has bent the stand – specifically the hole where the tree pole goes into it.
So, I knew what it needed was to be wired into the wall. How did I know this? Well, it’s yet another technique Greg used at various times to hold the Christmas trees up.
When we lived together every Christmas was an extravaganza of engineering. Since we split up (almost a decade now, I think – wow) I made this big deal about he couldn’t bitch about my trees anymore because he wasn’t doing anything with them. However, guess who I called everytime I had a Christmas tree crisis. Yes, you guessed it – Greg. I swear, he is the best ex-bf a girl could have.
When I was with Nathan, he joked one time that Greg was entitled to complain about my Christmas trees forever, just because of what he had gone through in the past to stabilize them.
OK, fast forward to last night, when I’m on the phone with Greg saying, “When are you coming home?” He got stranded in Joplin due to the weather. Well, tonight he returned and stopped by to work on the tree.
The plan of attack was to drill a hole in the baseboard and screw in an eyelet. Then to take heavy guage picture wire and snake it around the pole, without disturbing the thousands of lights that are all over the place – including wrapped around the pole. Then position the tree and wire it into place.
Of course, this meant that Greg had to get behind the tree. Did I mention it’s in a corner?
One of the things I’ve been teased about for a long time is that it’s hot around the tree because of all the lights.
Needless to say, I was getting Greg cold water and anything else he wanted.
Fortunately he escaped with only some icicles attached to him. And only one ornament got broken in the process and that was my fault and not specifically related to the tree being moved around.
THANK YOU, Greg, for securing the tree into it’s place. I told him he gained at least another three years of teasing me about the tree.
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