Timberrrr!
I can laugh about it now but, trust me it wasn’t too funny when it happened! We were all done! The lights were strung. The ornaments were hung. And, then it happened. As we were pushing back our 18 foot Christmas tree, we pushed back a little too far against the wall and over it went. CRASH! Down came the tree and lots of the ornaments too. What a mess! Broken ornaments, glass and pine needles everywhere. The lights in a tangled mess and a bent Christmas tree stand to boot. Crazy! Well, here’s the good news. I’m happy to report that it’s all better now! The lights are back on and although we have a few less ornaments on the tree this year, it still looks really beautiful! Oh well, don’t sweat the small stuff, right? Have you ever had that happen to you before? I want to hear about some of your holiday horror stories!
We had two trees one year and this blue flocked one we had in our front was completely decorated and we were admiring it. We live in the historic District in Kewaunee and have a Victorian Queen Ann home. The tree was in the front window and above the picture window, there is stained glass. I would put lights up there so it would light up the stained glass on the outside. For some reason the cold weather kept popping a bulb on this string of lights and it never had done that before. We have wide window sills and I had been up there like three times replacing a bulb. I finally told my husband that it was his turn to do it. He is not as small as me and he had knee surgeries so I assumed he was going to get the small step ladder to fix the bulb. I was working on a craft project and not paying attention. Next thing I know, he was flying in the air over the tree. The tree went down, he came over it, flew into the round glass table top which then hit my leg. I was OK but he hit his chin on it. Next thing the blood spurted, I got him a compress and decided he need to go to emergency at our local hospital ( now closed) which was one block away. He had stitches put in under his chin, we came back home and we put the tree back together. We could not sleep after all that! With being flocked, many of the wires were snapped but the branches in tact ( with a little less flocking on it). I re-wired the tree, got the ornaments back in place ( only two cheap ones broke) and the tree was good to go. Fortunately, the lights were all working yet. It was a good story to share the next evening at our Christmas party. At least he wasn’t hurt worse nor was I. I just had a bruise on my leg. How did this happen? He decided he could fix it the same way as I did…..standing on a 6″ window sill! NOT! This is still our “falling tree” Christmas story which still gets told some 20 yrs. later.
This happened to my parents two years ago. Words came out of my mother’s mouth I’ve never heard before! Some of the more expensive ornaments were broken and water went all over their wood floors, I’m just glad she wasn’t under it! Makes for a funny story now. Merry Christmas!
we had a cat that loved the Christmas tree it was a plastic type she loved to chew on the needles. One morning we got up and found the tree laying on the floor some of the ornaments and lights were broken . We picked the tree up and there amongst the branches was our cat socks she seemed ever so grateful to finally be released from the tree. You’d think she had learned her lesson to leave the tree alone not her she was right back at it but gentler with it so it wouldn’t fall on her but little did she know that we had strung it up to the walls chair railing. Now that cat is gone we have two more and they too like to chew on the branches. yes we still string up the tree and no ornaments on the lower quarter of the tree.
Whenever it has happened to us a cat has been to blame. The only value any ornaments have for me is the ones my kids made in school.. Luckily those survive every time.
When we were kids, my brother (about 4 years old) was admiring the tree and tipped it over. The ornaments were all broken and we knew that was the end of the Christmas tree because we didn’t have any money to replace them. Our neighbor lady owned a little corner grocery store, she took my brother & I to her store where we sat with canning jar lids (the flat disks), wrapped them in aluminum foil and had a ribbon (the red crinkly type) for the hanger. We put Christmas stickers on each of them – they were our tree ornaments for a few years! The tree actually was quite pretty with these on. My Mother saved a few of them for years.
Hi:
Years ago when our 2 children were young, they tried to help and pulled the tree over. We were smart we only made painted ornaments we painted, and they tried to help paint some. so it was just pick up and clean up. Also our family instead of exchanging a gift my Father said for each one to create there own ornament for exchange. we have been doing this for about 25 years, except in the last 4 years my Dad died and Mom is in a nursing home with Dementia so we have stopped this. So when we decorate the tree with our family ornaments we can remember each Christmas we had.
Just a note
Have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Gustav Locsktein Jr
It has not happened to me but i can remember when i was little it happened to my mom, my dad was at work and she went to water kt and over it went right on top of her. She was so mad cause she had told my dad before he left for work to wire it up and he did not do it. So after it fell she packed me and my two brothers in the car and we went to my grandparents house cause there was a big tree in the middle of our livingroom.
This happened to us two years in a row. The first time my son-in-law and I were watching t.v. and we could see it starting to come down out of the corner of our eyes and he was able to put his arm up and catch it without causing much damage. The second year we were having my husbands family over for Christmas at noon and that morning when we got up, we found the the tree tipped over. We had a mess broken ornaments, needles and water everywhere and company coming. We all pulled together cleaned up the mess and laughed, what else can you do. It turned out that the new stand we bought the year before wasn’t sturdy enough to hold a 10 foot tree, even though the label said it could. Our tree never fell before that stand and hasn’t come down yet this year with our new stand. Ya gotta love the holidays!
One year we bought a new PLASTIC stand, as we were opening up our presents Christmas morning the tree fell over – boom! It bounced! I think we all sat there for a few minutes in shock, then I laughed and it was ok…
A different time we went out and chopped our tree down, most likely too early. On Christmas Eve there wasn’t hardly any needles left! Our cat would go under the tree and there would be a “rain” of needles falling. So My husband and I went out into our back woods and cut down a Charley Brown tree. I took down the old tree and put up a new one.
We still laugh at those moments – good memories!
Last year I bought a REALLLLLLY nice pre-lit (spent A LOT of money on it) I had been wanting a really nice one for quite a while. We search high and low for just the right one, then I found one I fell in LOVE with…the kind they call “just cut” and it looks so real and feels real. Had it up last Christmas. Even added some purple lights with the clear lights (my tree decorations are purple and silver). Went to put up my beautiful tree this year…..only to find out that my husband accidently donated it to GoodWill about 6 weeks prior (thinking it was our old tree). DEVASTATED to say the least…. but I am making due with what I have. Sure hope whomever bought my beautiful (and expensive) Christmas tree at GoodWill loves it and appreciates it as much as I did. Wish I could afford to buy another one like it. Merry Christmas to you and your family.