Christmas cheer!
(Christmas tree: Carlisle, UK)
Merry Christmas!
Let me introduce you to our Christmas tree. My mother revels in the decorative aspects of the tree and doesn’t mind a bit that nothing matches and that there is no real theme. Since I was a child, Christmas trees have become much more stylish and now come in not only natural green, but white, black, read and really any colour you can imagine. We have never had a real tree, but a plastic pop-up one that we store in the attic the rest of the year. We miss out on the smell of fresh pine, but we make up for it by covering the tree’s natural shortcomings by festooning it in tinsel and all manner of ridiculous accoutrements.
In this image you can even see a section of an eggbox that I coloured with orange poster paint and green glitter before I could even read. It’s amazing that it has survived over (ahem) twenty years already. There are some awfully irritating musical lights accompanying the tinsel (though these can thankfully be muted), there are angels, miniature knitted stockings, painted wooden Christmas accessories, glass baubles, carved biblical scenes, a little ceramic seal, German nutcrackers and other arbitrary trinketry. Foe some reason there are some stuffed birds and felt pheasants hiding in the synthetic foliage as well. It may not be the height of good taste, but the tree is added to each year with more and more décor; it is like a cheap family tapestry – there are decorations from my mother’s childhood and from holidays, some with our names on, and although none are works of art, the entire tree is more meaningful and wonderful than other more conventionally attractive (and somewhat sterile) Christmas trees.
–Today Rosie is playing games, eating excessively and enjoying Carlisle, UK –
