A Proper Christmas Tree

Up until we had children we never owned a Christmas tree, our festivities previously had been a mixture of visiting friends and family but not celebrating in our own home as we spent quite a few of those years travelling.

I do remember one year just getting a small blow up tree that came already adorned with decorations, not at all Christmassy and a bit lame now I think about it. When it came time for our eldest daughters first Christmas I thought, right, I am getting a proper Christmas tree.

Although I wanted to get a real one, this was not possible as my husband has a sneezing problem and a heavily scented pine tree would have sent him into a month of a sneezing frenzy.

I headed to our local department store in search of the perfect Christmas tree and found a fake cypress pine that looked the business. Without really thinking about the vastness of the ceilings in a department store I chose the 7ft tree of my dreams.

I hauled it home and realised that this beauty was going to take up the whole corner of my family room and furniture removal was necessary. Not only that, I realised I would have to spend the same amount again on decorations. This tree would require hundreds of them.

We still have the 7ft tree and every year we lovingly drag it out of storage and spend hours erecting it and decorating it, it has become quite the ritual. My children love it (even if that means only decorating the front, as I still don’t have enough decorations for the whole tree).