If your Christmas tree base is made of welded steel...you might be a redneck

It's too bad I didn't take a picture when it happened.

Of course, a camera and my blog was the last thing on my mind when Elizabeth entered my home office and said, "Mom, I was just standing in the living room watching TV and the Christmas tree fell over."

Honestly, only one thought popped into my mind: "I knew it!"

In an effort to save space in our living room this Christmas season, I stuck our artificial tree in the corner. To further save space, my husband suggested that we not place the lower three tiers of branches on the back of the tree.

"No one's going to see it anyway," he said.

With much apprehension and hesitation, I agreed. But as the 7-1/2 foot Wal-Mart fir filled out in front, I thought I began to notice a slight inward lean. That lean became more and more obvious as we decorated it with all of the precious ornaments that I'd saved from my family throughout the years.

"It's your imagination," my husband said, admiring the finished product. "It just seems crooked because the angel on the top of the tree is sitting cock-eyed."

"OK," I said, and then continued to decorate other areas of the house.

Two weeks later, the three still stood with no more noticeable lean than before, and I simply dismissed the lean in my artificial tree as product of an optical illusion created by that cock-eyed angel.

And then -- panicked, disconcerted -- Elizabeth came in and told me it had fallen over. Knowing she was too upset to be playing a practical joke on me, I rushed to the living room and discovered that, indeed, my tree had tumbled.

Enter my husband -- the skeptic to whom I quickly said, "I told you so!"

He took one look at the busted base of the toppled tree and in his best Tim 'the toolman' Taylor voice said, "I can fix that."

After spending two hours in the garage with his welder, my husband returned with the mother of all Christmas-tree bases -- solid steel welded into an "X" shape with the attachment pole sticking straight up from the center.

"This sucker ain't goin' nowhere now," Dana said as we moved the tree upright again.

He's probably right. With a new base as big and heavy as the monstrosity he created, we may have a tree in our living room year-round.

But that's what you get when you marry a man that barks at tools.

Merry Christmas Everyone!