Some pre-Christmas bits and bobs
Including good fake trees, genius hooks, properly 'warm' fairy lights
I have started discreet festooning - okay, that’s not quite true, I have started putting up a small tree in the kitchen. It is not the big main tree, but it is quite early.
I used to be categorical about NO TREES UNTIL MID-DECEMBER (my birthday is on the 14th), but man, have I changed my tune. It started in lockdown. Everything was so grim, and since trees bring joy I put mine up on November 5. Yes - insanely early. But the tree made the sitting room so lovely, so cosy, so comforting during that weird, bleak time, that I never regretted it once. Thin end of the wedge, it turned out.
The following year - from memory there was another lockdown round about the end of October - I did the same thing. Again, no regrets.
By last year I’d totally rationalised it: I love Christmas. I love Christmas trees and garlands and twinkly lights. Going into shops that are fully festooned puts me in a good mood and the sight of glowing lights in the darkness gladdens my heart. Why not do the same thing at home? Everyone goes to so much trouble to decorate - it makes sense to get your quids’ worth by enjoying the results for as long as possible.
And so now my thoughts turn to Christmas planning the moment the clocks go back. I don’t do anything yet. But I sit and I plan.
If this appeals and you’re thinking ‘Yes, but I can’t put my tree up on November 22 even if I want to, it’s just too embarrassingly early,’ you can ease yourself in by getting a tree and lighting it. No decorations yet. That way it looks pretty and sits there full of promise, and you feel a keen - possibly even fatally urgent - sense of anticipation, but you appear marginally less crazed than if you’d fully dressed it.
On the other hand, it’s your house and I am strongly in favour of doing what you like. (I lied. I haven’t ‘started’ on my small kitchen tree - it’s fully bedecked. Also it’s not small).
Artificial trees and where to get them
Related to all this is the question of real vs fake. Again, I have done a massive U-turn. Having despised the idea of fake trees all my life, I have come to see that there are advantages: