We brought our tree in from the cold and wet yesterday. No time to do anything with it, but at least it could be unwrapped and given space to spread. And spread it did - I don’t think we’ve ever had such a wonderfully shaped tree!

My Hero’s choir had their concerts this weekend, singing to more or less a full house two nights running. It made all their hard work since June worthwhile: they learn all the words and music and use no books at all during their performances! The audience on both evenings were very appreciative and a great deal of money was raised for local charities as well. Win win win, really - they enjoy singing, we enjoy listening and the fundraising is a bonus. Bravo.

Today was decorations day then. The boxes brought down from the loft, we began with the age-old question: will the lights work? Well, of course they do these days, don’t they? But getting them all synced on “constant” is a challenge - seven presses of the button to scroll through “chasing” and “flashing” and “twinkling” to get there though.

I decorated the tree and unsurprisingly, there are a few bears to be put in place first. The old favourites come out before anything else.

We don’t generally have sentimental tree decorations and would simply regard some as “old favourites”.

There are German decorations throughout the house and a little reminder of the Erzgebirge here too.

There’s a fun reminder of sweet friends from the Netherlands

and a corner of our tree that is always Kiwi…

But the majority of the decorations are pure ASDA! Any glass treasures wouldn’t bounce around the floor like these do, and with a stone floor we have to be cautious.

I add ribbon bows to the branches

and untangle the icicle garlands and put them into place.

Last but not least, Teddy Santa is put right at the top; the same procedure every year.

Time to step back and admire.

By now, we had bright blue skies and the sun was shining - not the best of conditions to check if the lights were well spaced and so on.

So we tackled the fallout and sorted through the “stuff” that was still there in the boxes before returning them to the loft.

Our reward came in the form of dusk and reflections, because this year, I thought ahead and cleaned the insides of those windows yesterday.

(and now, I’ll go and fiddle with the lights to fill in that dark spot just above The Jolly Postman!)