Let me paint you a picture. We all know that Christmas is a wonderful and joyful time of year. I am lucky because I have the best wife in the world. She pretty much does everything. She shops for all the presents, decorates the house, the tree, bakes and even goes out and buys the tree. My only responsibility is to cut the bottom of the tree and put it in the stand. Simple enough, right? Well as simple as it sounds, for some reason it turns into a pain. I cut the tree and bring it into the house and that’s when all hell breaks loose. I am on the floor and she is holding the tree. I finally tighten all four screws, get up and stand back. Wow, the tree is crooked. I start complaining, she tells me to settle down, then I start saying how can you not tell that the tree is crooked. In my head, I know she can’t tell because she is standing so close, but it is much easier to whine and complain like a four-year-old. Before you know it the cops show up and I am in the slammer. If only there was an easier way. Okay, So I exaggerated a little bit, but I think you get the point. There should be a better tree stand. We sent guys to the moon, but I still can’t get a tree in the stand? Well, now there is an answer, the Black & Decker Smart Stand.
The Black & Decker Smart stand is a stand to make your life easier and help keep Christmas a joyful time of year. In fact, the stand is said to be so easy, it will only take 10 seconds to put up your tree. Now, if only someone could design a system to take the tree from the back of my truck and into the house. Now to give you a heads up, I haven’t tried putting a tree in the stand for two reasons. First, it’s not Christmas time yet, so there are no trees for sale, plus the tree would die by the time Christmas rolls around. Second, I was going to cut down my neighbor’s pine tree, but I really don’t want to spend the night in jail again.
So what is the Black & Decker Smart Stand? For me, this is an innovative solution to the common problem. Someone was using their head and developed a better mouse 
trap. All you have to do is set the stand in the start position, lift up the tree and place it in the stand, job done. Taking it down is just as easy. Move the ring to the unlock position, grab the tree and lift out. Seriously, could it be any easier?
While I haven’t tried the stand, I just wanted to let you know it’s out there. As Christmas time rolls around, I will give you an update on how it worked for us and whether or not I had to visit the nearby jail. I like the fact that the base is wide. I also like the water spout which makes filling the base up with water much easier. The best part is the metal prongs that hold the tree in place. They seem thick and solid, so it seems like a stand that will last you a lifetime. The stand will hold a tree up to 9′ tall with a diameter of 4.7″. That’s a pretty solid tree size.
Bottom line I am actually looking forward to setting up our Christmas tree this year. While I haven’t used the product, it does look like it will work. I love the idea that it’s simple putting up, but also simple taking it down. As a side note, for those of you who are mad because I used the word Christmas. Oh well, deal with it. MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Update
We we had a chance to use it last night and guess what? No cops showed up. This stand is awesome and easy to use. All I had to do was put the tree stand in the lock position, place the tree on top and push down. The tree was firmly locked into place and was completely straight. How great is that? However, I did find one thing I really don’t like about the stand, the water hole. On the side there is a place to pour water to feed the tree. If you notice the picture above, there is a small gap between where you pour water and the bottom of the drip pan. This small hole leads directly to your floor, which I am not sure why it was designed like this. I found this out the hard way. We had the tree in the stand and poured water into the tree. A couple of minutes later, I saw a bunch of water running across the hardwood floors. Good news was that I found out it was easy taking the tree out of the stand. I had to take the tree out of the stand to see why water was leaking all over the floor and this is when I found out there is a gap. Now if you pour the water into the hole, you shouldn’t get water in the gap. I was just pouring water into the hole thinking that any over spill would go directly into the drip pan, which it doesn’t. So word to the wise, take your time when putting water into the tree so you don’t encounter the same issue I had. Overall I love this stand. Easy in and easy out.
Seems like a good what to hold the tree, anything that makes it easier to mount the tree is ok with me.