Christmas Preparations

What my Christmas tree looks like.	What I’d like my tree to look like.

I have my Christmas tree up and decorated now but the observant will notice the lack of treetop adornment this year. That is because the star which I’ve been using for the last ten years fell apart last year and I quite forgot about it until I got the decorations out. What goes on the top of your tree is an important decision because its quite likely that you will be seeing that ornament every year for a month for anything from ten years to the rest of your life so it really has to thought through carefully. Angels are fine but I’m not a big fan of religious iconography in the home and they have that frightening doll factor (dolls have that effect on me) which can give you a start when you catch it in the corner of your eye in a darkened room. Thus I have decided on a new star but now I have started to realise how fussy I can be sometimes. We popped along to Selfridges but found the selection really bad with most items on sale and what was left quite tacky. I had a moan at the sales assistant about it who ventured that they have been selling Christmas decorations since August but I suspect that had I come looking for a treetop star then they wouldn’t have had any then either and would have looked at me like I was mad to be planning my Christmas in August. So unless I spy one by accident I shall have to make one at home myself for this year. Helena raised an eyebrow at my suggestion but little does she know that I am a child of the Blue Peter generation where young Britons are taught to build absolutely anything from a washing-up bottle and sticky-backed sellotape with precision and imagination that would win admiration from the A-Team. Do you remember John Noaks’ Advent Crown? I remember almost crying with frustration trying to make that in time for Christmas, well you just try to fix four candles onto the shoulders of two wire coat hangers, its devilishly difficult. I still wonder how many homes must have burned down as a result of that ill-conceived idea.