My husband is standing on the back of a chair with his head peering into the loft, whilst I am sitting on it to avoid it tipping. We certainly do not want any broken limbs for Christmas. Typically, the ladder is somewhere buried in the outside shed, so we are resorting to the kitchen chair for assistance. He hauls himself up into the loft opening and rummages around for the box of Christmas decorations. The children stare bewildered at the whole charade. After a few groans and grunts from the black hole above us, my husband shouts out, “Found it. I knew I’d put it somewhere up here.” He then passes it down to me through the hatch, with the three children surrounding me like some sort of safety net.
We begin sifting through the decorations, rapidly removing the small torn crackers that have clearly been enjoyed by a small mouse. The children excitedly pull out everything glittery, including two long strands of tinsel which they wave around the room. I try to remain calm and ‘merry’ as silver tinsel scatters itself across the carpet in every direction. “I think those would look lovely in your bedrooms,” I say hastily. Meanwhile, I open the box of Mummy’s special decorations – all things wooden. Once we have spent the first half an hour positioning the tree, we begin decorating. I must come clean here and admit that having wrestled with pine needles for years, we now have a fake tree that although has no gorgeous smell, does avoid having to drag the vacuum cleaner around the tree every day. Also, our tree comes with lights perfectly attached to the branches. “How ghastly,” I hear you say. But now, there is no need for my husband to lie under the tree spending a good first hour checking each small bulb to find out why the lights fail to come on, whilst the children look on sobbing.
Obviously, I like my children to participate with the whole tree decorating task, but it is desperately hard to watch as the front branches become more and more crowded leaving the side and back branches miserably bare. Then, we have the mass of homemade decorations – the glittery gluey pom pom resembling some sort of snowflake, the paper fan-shaped angel and the new addition in the form of a cardboard lantern covered in stickers. These are of course given prime position in the front, for all to admire. At one point I dare to say, “Don’t you think the lantern would look really nice here darling?” My daughter is quick to reply, “But, no one can see it at the back, Mummy.” Finally, we all step back, switch on the lights and delight in our Christmas masterpiece.
Later that evening, when “nothing was stirring, not even a mouse” I tiptoe downstairs and quietly make some minor adjustments to my beloved tree. I just wonder how long it will take them to notice that the small painted white wooden angel has been upgraded to the front, and the pom pom has been relegated to the back row!
