Building Christmas

This is my Christmas Tree. Every year, Mrs. Shambles - who spent a couple years decorating the trees in Cleveland's Galleria - wraps our five foot tree to the hilt, and every year it gets a little more intense and I have to run to the store to buy more lights. This year, we're up to around 1300 lights.

It is a wonder to behold. None of that half-assed couple strings to hit the ends of the branches. Mrs. Shambles digs deep and illuminates the entire tree.

Problem we had this year was we actually found a topper - a lovely star that actually shows up in the Home Depot commercial. It's something we've been looking for for years. This year, the topper and the end table we usually use are in conflict, as the 20 inch table pushes our lovely star into the ceiling. The table is necessary to make sure the entire tree is not lost by the 15 inches under the sill.

Result? Ricky Shambles, who is relatively handy, owns power tools, and measures everything twice before cutting has built a table. It couldn't have worked out better.

We had no time for a lumber trip, as I declared the build as soon as we ran into the problem. Measurements put our three-footed tree at a little less than 21 inches between toes and around that from the center of that point to the toe of the third.

By some miracle, I went into the basement to measure the only plank we had for the base of the table and it was 11" wide by 31" long. I almost peed myself. That means that if I cut 10" off the end, the resulting piece will be 21" and wide enough for the 2-toe support. Center the 10" piece and join it to the back and I've got another 21" to support the back toe.

I'm not going to go into more detail, but I've got a 5-leg table, built from leftovers from the last owner that, with a box of wood screws and some Gorilla Glue made the whole thing happen.



The slight bend in the front of the stand you see there is actually the warp in the board I was using. And, yes, I did compensate for that in the front legs so that all five are solidly on the ground.

Best building evar. Merry Christmas!