Cuss-Cuss, Bang-Bang: the story of my Christmas mantel

For a while, I have been trying to think about what to put over my faux fireplace in my living room, which looks like this for the most part:

I have thought about a picture gallery, a mirror, a sculpture, and maybe a huge Boudoir photo of myself.

I have yet to have any luck with it.

However, I did want to do something fun with it for Christmas and about a week ago, I started to get an idea. You know, one of those ideas that starts off pretty small and then before you know it, you're buying chicken wire at closing time on a Sunday night at Lowe's?

That's pretty much how my idea evolved, and here is the result:

But really, the fun part is the story of how it came to be...