It’s Christmas and we now have a Christmas Tree, still wet with rain on December 21st. Our problem is that, unlike the rest of the world, we don’t believe in putting the tree up until the solstice, and since we don’t want it being battered around the garden prior to that, we only buy it at the last moment, too. The trouble with that is that there are no trees to be had anywhere, except dinky ones in pots. For the third time, it’s a dinky one in a pot that has come to our rescue. This is it.
I know there’s endless debate about whether an artificial tree or a real one is more eco-friendly, and I know many proud housewives who regard real trees and their mountains of shed needles with horror, but for me it has to be real. Where would Christmas be without the joy of discovered a heap of dried needles under a sofa sometime in mid-June? We always have a real tree. And not one of those fancy ones that keep their needles. If it doesn’t shed like a moulting bear, it’s not the real thing.
About 30 years ago, two of us were away from the family home for Christmas, in a very small flat, but not to be out-done, I bought one of those little trees in a pot, decorated it, and, much later, brought it home. It came in again the following Christmas, and possibly the one after, as a subsidiary decoration. Then we planted it out in a neglected corner of the garden and forgot all about it.
It obviously thrived on neglect because, 20 years later, when we discovered we were too late to buy a tree, we looked around in despair and saw it poking out above the straggling bushes. The bottom part was rather brown battered, but the top third looked like a perfect Christmas tree. So we cut it off and used it, with apologies to the stump. A few years later, once again we were too late to buy one and behold, a side shoot of the stump had stepped into the breach and formed a brand new top, just perfect for cutting.
And this year, because we never learn, it’s come to our rescue again. I wonder how long it can keep going like this. It reassures me that that a real tree is definitely the right choice. It just keeps giving. Recycling by Mother Nature.
Thorne Moore 
That is indeed impressive from a tree first bought 30 years ago. (It’s also not that dinky!) A tree is our major bit of decoration along with some holly- everything else is incidental and fewer and fewer other items join it as the years pass.
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it does get more difficult to work up the enthusiasm, doesn’t it? Being young helps so much.
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Remember all that twisted crepe paper from corner-to-corner in the sixties, and those shiny, spiral crinkled thingies that must have tormented anyone over 5′ 6? My father fixed them to the ceiling with drawing pins but the combined weight or a rapidly-closed door often brought them down. And we had those cardboard decorations that opened out to show a honeycombed inside? And there was all that tinsel that started to look a bit threadbare and tarnished. Those were the days…
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lights aren’t what they were, either.
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Lametta – those thin shiny silvery strips that dangled over the crepe paper, alwys trailed from my father’s head every time he passed underneath. We never told him!! And we had balloons in each corner of the room. Can’t rmember the last time we had balloons here – I think Luke was about five!
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This year we remembered that, last year, we’d thrown out the seven foot artificial tree we’d had for yonks. Our enthusiasm has run to getting out the too tiny artificial trees we put in the porch and dining room. They now have lights on them. By tomorrow we may even have put decorations on them. There again… we might not!!!🤭😆🥰
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Ha! Going on, Judith. Decorate!
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We did – baubles too big for these trees though. x
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Ah, go on, go on! (As Mrs Doyle would say.) 😆
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Ah, okay!! x
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