Christmas decorations

Ok, we've had our first snow, we've started our Christmas shopping, and today we are in New York at Rockefeller Plaza. It's time to climb over the stuff we've been pushing into the attic all year to get to the Christmas decorations in the back.

It's sort of like a refrigerator where all the most recent leftovers are in front and all the science projects are growing in the back. But unlike the refrigerator, the back of the attic is full of forgotten treasures that we haven't seen for a year. It's the old lights, the ornaments, nativity sets, candles, tree trinkets and the Christmas tree stand, that is if it didn't rust through like ours did last year.

Yes, this year we got a new tree stand but a plastic one that hopefully won't rust. Now our only question, will it really only hold an eight foot tree or can I push it to eleven or twelve feet without tying it to the rafter like I did last year? I don't recall having a height specification on a Christmas tree stand before. Think about it, If the tree is straight as an arrow, what difference does it make how tall it is, and if it's crooked, who cares what the specs say, it's going over or it gets tied to the rafter.