ST:TCT meets ST:TTS

This year brings some big changes for Star Trek: The Christmas Tree, shaking things up and giving it room to grow.

To me, they are all equally big changes, but let’s act like there’s a ranking:

Biggest change: Star Trek: The Tree Skant!

I finally sorted out what to do for a tree skirt, having resorted the loose color-scheme-matching remants.

I present to you: Lt. Tree Skant.

You can see the bits about it here.

This is the completed project, started and finished over the past two days:

Next big change: new lights. The incandescent lights that came with the tree started failing last year. I striped them off and replaced them with white LEDS icicle lights. This is Hallmark though, and the older ornaments require an incandescent strand to operate. I fished some incandescent multi-color lights through the tree to address this. Note: icicle lights are suited for all of this due to the centralized cord.

The big lighting change is the warp core. LOL.

I wrapped the spine of the tree with multi-mode LED rope lights, using sections of a cardboard fabric tube to beef up the trunk. The pulsing blue setting sells the idea.

The core ended shorter than I wanted, but I bought the ropes years ago, and I didn’t think that I could match the product. I moved on with the tree. Of course, shortly after, I found an extra rope light after I was too far into dressing the tree. Next year…

Third biggest change: I don’t normally include money and prices in online discussions, but I will so much to say that we made the decision to go after a few exclusive comic con releases this year after a decent chunk of them showed up for resale.

We scored three, and I decided that protected displays were smarter than ornaments in a tree, with the handling that entails.

I fashioned holsters for them and framed them in deep frames. The boxes are folded flat and in the picture windows, packing materials stowed away.

They compliment the growing collectibles.

One last smaller change: filler decorations.

I left off the glittery gold bits and the white glass ornaments I used as “abstracted planets” hoping the Star Trek ornaments would be enough to stand alone. Even after the heap of faux tribbles, it needed more Holiday Glitz™, so I went with glass icicles. A ton of glass icicles!

Enjoy the spectacle of ST:TCT.