Story time.

I started at this job in August and noticed that they are great people, but they don't really DO things for holidays. Nothing for Thanksgiving or Halloween. So I decided that I needed to do something for Christmas. Lucky for them, I love this time of year.

Through my work at my local range as the....well I have a lot of titles...but in this case it is as my job as Range Director, I often go up and walk the property after major weather events to make sure no damage was done. I found this large tree that had blown down during a heavy wet snow and after clearing the snow, the tree stayed down. Which meant having to cut it to prevent people from running into it. So I walked in, chainsaw at the ready and chopped the tree down. The bulk of it went to the fire hutch to dry and be processed for firewood and the top found a new home at my store.

After fighting with it, I knew it needed something more. So I said, "Hey, I just got some new lights for the house and now have spare strands. I can use those!". So I brought them, wrapped the tree and was still unimpressed. Then I had another idea, which is rare to have multiple good ideas within a couple hours. I have a 3d printer and I could make some ornaments, but I didn't want to just make boring ones. So I made up custom ones for each person in the branch so they could hang them and feel included.

It was at this point I had a worry. We have a fellow who is Muslim and I was worried about making him an ornament as it might seem like a "hey, your religion is goofy and you should celebrate this holiday", but I was also worried that NOT making one would be "Hey, your religion is goofy and screw you. We don't want you as part of this." I ultimately opted to make one for him as a "hey man, I know you don't celebrate, but I didn't want to make you feel left out. It's cool if you don't want to keep it." He loved it and was super thankful.

But the tree still lacked....something. So again I fired up the printer to make a tree topper...Then the poop hit the fan...