Tanenbaum

Well, my head is in the sand, here, workwise, or possibly I've a beach up my arse, as I'm posting instead of working, but anyway, v quickly -

I love the Christmas Tree, I don't know how anyone can have a fake one. The smell, the sense of welcoming it into the house, of gratitude that it's here to be our Christmas tree! The decorations from my childhood, the gifts, the little glowing berry lights, placing the star or angel on top. I love it all. Nothing is so familiar and evocative.

Decorations of particular note (and I might get round to photos at some point: The Mr and Mrs Claus, who scream Coca Cola, but I don't care!, with armfuls of kittens. The tiny kitsh sparkly Santas. The wooden painted pictures. All dating back beyond my babyhood. There's the baubels we bought in Brown Thomases years ago (ball!ball!) and the homemade stained glass ones, the stained glass red apple and gold leaf skeletons my godmother gave me, Italian ones from a friend, some cute little cartoony angels, singing, Sesame st Christmas decorations, a fat bellied robin, this year's sparkling dove chosen by Olivia, and perfect fox made of some sort of - I don't know, natural, brushy stuff!

I love them all, little gems of Christmas magic.

I need some more coloured berry lights though, I had some from Habitat for years, that had the best glowy, classic colours. The ones I have now have blue and pink, not so good. And there's too much white, it's too bright. But I didn't find any others this year. Any ideas?