With all the clicking back and forth between here and the general conversation side of this forum (checking to see if our Decor Side was up and running yet), I forgot where I was! This was supposed to be on the other side... I'm sorry!

It's a good way to start a Xmas Tree 2009 thread, since the other one disappeared, lol. So sorry this happened to you !!!! details please........

Oh Dear, I think a bubble bath may be in order, not a shower!

Best of luck and I hope nothing is broken!

Kat :)

Ack! So sorry.

Last time that happened to me, the culprit was a little black toy poodle. Bad puppy!

Somebody's got some spain'in to do. Dog? Cat? Child? Hubby?

So sorry!

Our past cat Ollie did that to our 9 foot tree one year. Luckily, he did it after Christmas, just as we walked in the door from an overnight trip. It was his way of saying "Where have you been and why didn't I get to go? Take this!"

About twelve years ago, we got a really huge tree. It was probably 12 feet tall. I stayed up late decorating it with millions of ornaments, while DH went to bed. My ornaments are mostly German glass, vintage glass, and various keepsakes.

Later, as I was watching TV, I saw the tree start to slowly tip forward. I jumped up and tried to stand it up straight with no success. If I let go, it would smash to the ground, and I couldn't secure it by myself.

So, I started yelling for help. My DH burst out of the bedroom thinking I was hurt or someone was in the house. :) He was not very happy to find it was only a Christmas tree 911. Moral of the story: big trees need a big stand. We ended up anchoring the tree to the window trim using fishing line! At 2 in the morning!

I'm so sorry about your poor tree. I hope not much damage was done. Maybe it was a roaming gang of tree vandals? Sorry, I know I'm not funny.

How about, scream, cry, and then have a stiff drink? And then make someone else fix it.

Oh soooo sorry - that sucks! That has totally happened to me in the past.
I laugh now but yesterday I was standing on a stool adding some decorations my mother passed down to me to the top of the tree and I came SOOOOOOOO close to losing my balance and falling head first into the tree...could you imagine? When I say it was so close....it was close!

I hope you are feeling a little better - I hope nothing got broken. :(

Haley

Ouch that hurts to look at! After all the years of cats, dogs, and kids, we still secure our tree to the wall! we have eye hooks hidden in the two places we like to place our tree.

Yikes .. I hope nothing was broken! I also hope you're having a much better day today!

We also secure ours with fishing wire. Have done so since ours almost fell after a successful decorating. If you look closely in some of my photos (posted on this board) you will see the wire.

I have a 10 foot tree (this is our 3rd year) and you guys have me thinking I need to anchor it! I don't have all the decorations on it yet (the kids put stuff on the bottom), but some of mine are glass and very old. Now, where is the fishing line......

Oh mercy, that's not good... :/ Hope the shower and scream/cry helps!

Happened to us 1st year we put up an artificial tree. I collect certain ornaments, some are really heavy. Live tree had no trouble w/them. Never dawned on me the artificial couldn't take it till I heard that sickening crash.

DH took the stand and permanently mounted it to a piece of plywood, about 18" x 18" or so, sanded smooth at edges. I put felt tabs on the bottom to protect floor. But that wasn't enough. So then we had to stick some of his smaller free weights from his weight bench on the plywood base (5 lb here, 5 lb there). Good grief. Tree skirt covers all of it tho, no one even knows it's there.

Thankfully the cat/dogs have never shown an interest! ;)

I notice Santa sat by blissfully, he's a focused person lol. Sorry to say when I saw the pic I actually laughed. Compared to illness or serious problems, it can be humorous. I know you're not happy but it makes a great story. Put on some nice music and start all over again.
p.s. don't kill be but I love the picture.

WARNING: Very Long Post!

Thank you, Thank you all for your posts, for sharing your own fallen/almost fell tree stories, for the chuckle and for commiserating...........each post made me feel so much better and now I'm smiling.
In the grand scheme of things, this was but a little speed bump.

Little background:
Large lot of land across the street had been owned for 60 years by a family who lived in a small shack on the land.
Turning onto our block on the land you could see non-running old vehicles, sheds, several couches and other pieces of furniture, trash, tons of overgrown brush, dead trees...you know what I mean.

They had been offered money over the years from developers/builders but turned it down.
May 2009 they were offered 1.7 mil, took the money.
Within a month we had bulldozers, skips, all kinds of huge machinery clearing that plot of land.

In almost 30 years of living here we've never had a rat problem. Occasional Possums and Raccoons from the nearby golf course but never rats.
Because of my mom's total replacement hip surgery I wasn't able to attend our Neighborhood Watch Meeting the first of November but my neighbor brought me the flier which lists the topics of discussion.
Top of the list: Clearing that large piece of land created a rodent problem in our neighborhood as the rats scattered for new homes.

For the first time in years Mr. Amity had the day after Thanksgiving off work.
We took that time to start pulling all the Christmas decoration boxes down from the rafters in the attic.
As I started going through the boxes my heart sank......the rats had eaten, chewed, pee'd and poo'd on almost everything! If it wasn't pee'd and poo'd on, it was chewed through.....wood, the wires on the Christmas lights.
We are not talking cardboard boxes....these are Sterilite Totes with snap-on lids...hard plastic!

By that Saturday night we had filled up (wearing rubber gloves!) two of those huge Contractors' black plastic trash bags full of ruined Christmas decorations.

Rats love raffia, they love cotton, they can smell the individually wrapped candy canes I used for decoration purposes ..... hot gluing them to centerpieces, they love hard candy that I used to glue around simple glass candy dishes then sprayed with clear sealer, they love paper decorations made by all my children through their early school-age years and most of all they really love old wood- to chew on, to make nests I supposes....old wood as in the ornaments made in the 30's, 40's and 50's by my grandparents and great grandparents.

I was so down over the loss of those special Christmas memories that I announced "No Tree, no decorating this year".

THEN, I started peeking in on the Christmas Tree Topic here on the Decor Forum (before it disappeared) and little by little, because of each and every poster who took the time to post their beautiful trees and decorations, I slowly felt myself getting back in the mood!

Used a couple of the undamaged Sterilite Tubs, filled them with water and a half bottle of bleach each LOL and proceeded to disinfect Christmas Decorations.
I changed the water/bleach frequently.
When things were dry I soaked them with Lysol Spray. LOL

I couldn't do it to all the decorations....if there were nests stuck on or if the Ornie stuff was stuck together with Gawd-only-knows-what, then I didn't try.
But for the most part I did get a lot of my Garland disinfected, lots of the plastic ornies, lots of the faux glass ornies my kids had made, lots of the ceramic ornies came out bright and clean.

Three out of the 26 boxes of lights weren't touched...the rest had to be trashed.
But the three 100-light strands were enough to cover the tree.
I didn't attach the last two rows of branches to the tree making the tree smaller.....the lights covered the smaller tree and so did the salvaged ornies with some left over to add around the house to decorate other areas using the branches I had left off the tree.

It was a LOT of work to salvage those decorations but it was so, so so worth it...and I owe it all to that Original Christmas Tree 2009 Thread and everyone who added their photos or commented to the thread!

I was so proud of myself for making do with what we had as far as Decorating .....I pulled out the vac because I was going to vac the area, add the tree skirt, take pics and then bring those pics here to add to the Christmas Tree 2009 thread and thank you all for bringing me back into the Christmas mood.

I'm unwrapping the vac cord and hear a commotion behind me. I turn just in time to see Pooch being chased by Cat.
Everything went into slow motion and before I knew it, the round disco ball tree-topper was resting on my big toe.

After all that work, separating, washing, disinfecting, modifying the tree so it wouldn't look so bare with the ornies we had left....and there it was.....the tree that took me 12 hours to decorate (over a several day period), was laying at my feet.
It didn't help that I was already emotional/at the end of my rope/over-tired because we had just brought my Dad home from the hospital the day before....emergency surgery.

On the funny side (at the time) I had sent the same pic to my son at work.
He walked in the door a few hours later and knew how badly I felt.
He walks in with a huge smile on his face and knowing it would make me smile he said:
"Mom...You started a new trend! As I drove down our block just now I saw so many trees in the windows and they were decorated sideways!"

GREAT SON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope you gave him a huge hug!!

Amity, I'm sorry this happened to you, I'd be very upset too!
Your son sounds like a wonderful young man
AND pleaes print off this entire thread before it disappears. Someday you'll get a kick out of reading how this all happened!
Sue

Ohhh! I'm so sorry! This happened only once to us and it was the last real tree we ever had. We'd just had the carpet cleaned (not smart on our part) and 60 seconds after DH filled the resevoir with water, the tree just toppled over into my arms. I never realized just how heavy a fully decorated tree was. The sad part was that the only ornaments broken were those that DS had brought back from a trip to Germany. They were really special to him. I know it probably doesn't help right now, but you'll be talking and laughing about this for years to come. I wish you a very Merry Christmas! You deserve it!

I can't believe what you just wrote about the rats. We too have been having some trouble with some type of rodents. My dog, a JRT has been going crazy both outside (around our house foundation), in the garage and in the basement (where we keep our decorations.) Guess what! Our builder started a new house a couple of months ago in the field across the street. I am going to talk to my neighbors and see if they have been having troubles, too.

When I was going through our decorations, I found droppings in one of my Sterlite containers, and a Christmas oven mitt had been toyed with. A threw a few things away, but really didn't see any damage. However, I could not figure out how the rodent got into the container. I didn't see any holes, nor did I know they could chew into plastic.

OK, for the last few days, we have been having a terrible odor waif in and out in our study. It smells like it is coming from one of the walls. At first I thought it was heat activated, but then figured that the odor is being carrying by the breeze. The more breeze, the worse the smell. So, I was thinking it was something in the attic instead. DH is on his way home from work, and I am going to have him look in the attic. I didn't know rats could climb into an attic.

BTW - I put a few of those electrostatic rodent devices out in the basement and outside. What else can we do?

Wow Amity, the story surrounding this makes it all the more dramatic and painful I'm sure. Having your son come home and make you smile helps remind us all that stuff is just stuff and that having family and friends around during the holidays is the most important part of it all!

This will truly be a Christmas to remember for you and your entire family! Those upside down Christmas trees were all the rage for awhile, maybe sideways "IS" the next big thing!

Like Sjt2900 said, you deserve the Merriest of Christmases and a much calmer New Year!

Kat :)

When I first saw the picture I was LOL, because mine had fallen over before. But when I read the story, my heart just sank.

This is a good lesson for all of us. I have a similar story but it wasn't Chirstmas. When we had the new storm cellar installed off the patio, my husband "decorated" around it with these beautiful antique stone cinder blocks which was from an old house about a 100 years old.

The following summer we started getting Black Widows. Not in the house thank God, but nesting UNDER the picnic table, around the dryer vent, and various places outside. We also had a huge infestation of house flies that summer around the patio. It was so bad we couldn't go outside to eat.

We figured when he disturbed the land the rocks were on, and the rocks had holes in them full of dirt, he brought us a bunch of insects too! The problem went away the following year though. So maybe the same will happen for you?

Maybe you need to call an exterminator?

I still want to see your tree, you can put it here on in the ornament thread.

Merry Christmas, Amity!

Im so sorry this happend to you, love your sons remark. We spent last night decorating our tree that my dh and dd bought , it is a life one . They bought one that is way to big and we had to rearange the livingroom last night to have it look ok. well we all woke up at 3:30 this morning to a loud bang. we all came running to the livingroom to see the tree lying on my glass table with the ornaments all over the place. thank god only 5 ornaments broke and nothing on the table broke. we just viped up the water from the oak floor and vacumed up the broken glass and went back to bed. Funny you should post this only a few hours after this happend to me.
hope you feel better and have a wonderful chrismas
and thell you son that atleast one family in Iceland is doing the sideways tree this year LOL.
Svava

Aw, Amity, what a shame. One bright spot: You've obviously raised a compassionate and witty son! I hope not too many ornaments were broken . . . and how's your dad doing? Okay, I hope.

ice1 - The "accident" happened to Amity on Tuesday...before your tree mishap.

So sorry to the both of you. :)

Guess what I dreamed about last night? Little black moles all over the house. UGH!!! I am truly creeped out now. We looked in the attic last night and it smelled like crisp new wood. No animal smells, and we didn't see any. I guess the little varmint got stuck in the wall and died. We are expecting colder weather and snow today,so hopefully the smell will dissipate. In fact, I don't smell anything thus far today.

When I first saw the picture, I thought a cat had something to do with this! (lol) Then I started to read her followup today and couldn't figure out how rats did this :o But, it turns out a cat WAS involved. amity, I'm so sorry about all your precious Christmas ornaments :( I DO know how you feel because (somehow) during an extensive remodel in 2007, our large box of "good" ornaments got thrown away. We didn't put a tree up that year because the house was upside down so it wasn't discovered till last year. We have NO idea how it could have happened but unless we want to believe a stranger went into our attic and stole ONLY one box of Christmas ornaments, that's the only other explanation. So SO disappointing. I'd spent 6 years getting the tree just right.
Love what your son said. Hope it helped :)
About the mice/rats. We live in the country too. We haven't had much of a mouse problem in the 28 years we've lived until a couple years ago. They were in the attic as well as getting in the large Stearlite box we keep dogfood and dog grooming supplies (outside under the carport). HOW, they were getting in the box remains a mystery :o No more problems since we've been keeping a tray of Decon poison pellets behind the dog box and in the attic. The poison does two things. It makes them run for water (if they can make it that far) and when they do die, they won't smell. I have never seen a dead one but the pellets get eaten and we have no mice. If you have a problem killing mice, oh well (lol)
Monica

I am so, SO thankful, so blessed that I had all of you to turn to.

I just re-read all the replies again and I'm smiling from ear to ear (and to be perfectly honest...my eyes got a bit teary) and I am about to start RE-decorating the tree....for the second time; thanks to all of you.

To read some of your stories....terribly sad yes....those memories. But then I read how someday I can look back at this and laugh and I'm hoping all of you who've had the fallen tree mishap are able to do that also.

To all of you: If any of you ever need a shoulder, or need to vent, I'll be here for you just as you were for me-I sincerely mean that. Just holler! (or, at least email through GW and I'll be there for ya...any of ya!)

My Dad is doing much better....thank you so much for asking.
It was sure scary the night I called 911.
The fact that he is diabetic didn't help matters.
E.R. Dx'd as severe food poisoning but because his sugar was through the roof and white count was so high they decided to keep him.
On day three they were still insisting it was food poisoning. Took matters into my own hands and got a second opinion. Five tests later......
Severely Gangrene Gall Bladder, infection throughout bloodstream, etc. etc.
Emergency surgery at 9 that night.

Today, Dad is going to the bathroom without me helping him get up and walk there and without me standing outside the bathroom door waiting for him to finish.
Thus....I'm redecorating my tree today! LOL

My son? My voice of reason and comic relief.
I will be showing him this printed thread. Thank you all so much.

As for mice, rats and Sterilite....here's some pics I took really early this morning.
This is one of the last two Sterilite tubs that we didn't get broken down in time for the curb/trash pick-up.

Until now I thought those cute little round mouse holes in cartoons were just that....round mouse holes in cartoons.
Nope, those critters really DO make almost perfect holes to get at what they want!

And yes, thank you for that tip.....I just finished printing out this topic, all the replies.
I want to put it with the pics I took of the mouse holes....so I can hopefully laugh about it some day.

If you are squeemish about 'rat and mice stuff', don't scroll down to the pics below.....stop right here *smile*
But I did put pieces of bubble wrap behind the holes to keep you from seeing the 'stuff' inside. Considerate of me, no? *grin*

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