The Legend of the Christmas Corn Dog

This was a bit of an unusual Christmas for our family, to say the least. My grandmother, Rixie the 2nd, has been in bad health requiring a few trips to the hospital since October. Thankfully, she is on the mend now, but Christmas was done in shifts this year. Between the hospital visits, my mother, Rixie the 3rd, had a reoccurring sinus infection. It is safe to say that Christmas decorating was the very last thing on the minds of my parents.
When we got into town we had two main missions. For me to restore a touch of normal to the house through cooking and doing laundry, and to get the house decorated for Christmas. I took advantage of my cousins' well timed visit, and got them to help us with the tree. When it came time to add the tree topper, there was an odd addition to the star's box. It looked like a wooden corn dog. We looked at it, scratched our heads for a minute, but went on with the job.
The star had a springy sort of bottom that did not want to balance on top of the tree. As soon as I got it somewhat secured, it would start to lean. It was getting really frustrating, and then a long buried memory came flooding to the front of my brain.

Bring me the Christmas Corn Dog!

Years ago my father had noticed a hole in the top of the tree just the right size to slide a dowel into. He turned a piece of wood to match the size and length of the spring on the star.

It slide right in, and blended in perfectly. I put the star on, where it stood perfectly level and steady all through Christmas.

Leave it to our family to come up with something both confusing and ingenious all at the same time.