decorating the christmas tree

Christmas preparation on the farm

If the OH had his way, Christmas wouldn’t exist.  To him it’s too much effort, and being on the farm, he still needs to work over Christmas.  The animals still need feeding although he does try and get as much work done early in the morning so he can get back in plenty of time to visit the nephews and niece to do present drop offs.

December is definitely when we start thinking about Christmas preparation, aided by the advent calendar countdown.

Christmas decorations

I love to buy a new bauble (or 2) each year, and this year found some gorgeous little glass ones, that look stunning on the tree with the lights.  Shame I managed to break one of them by dropping it when I was pulling the tag off.  After I’d been telling N to be careful with the baubles if he was helping me decorate the tree, he then told me

‘It wasn’t me mummy.  You said to be careful’.  Oops, reprimanded by a 4 year old.

beautiful purple and silver baubles

We love putting the tree up and this year we were earlier than normal.  It’s usually the weekend before, but I decided to put it up 2 weekends before which means we enjoy it for longer, and it feels a bit more Christmassy.  The time seems to whizz by quicker as well the nearer you get to Christmas, so I’m happy to try and stretch out the feel good feeling for longer.

N helped carry some of the baubles down from upstairs.  He unpacked the tree from its tree bag (so much better than the old tatty box it came in), and then insisted on putting the branches in while I spread them all out.  Because ‘it’s too hard for me to do that bit.  But don’t go too fast’.

Christmas tree at home

It’s a lovely thing for the 2 of us to do together.  We put on a Christmas cd, and sang along while I instructed N on where the baubles should go.

He’s very helpful at untangling beaded garlands too, although he did manage to get the lights more tangled than I’m sure they were put into the box.

deer in a bauble on a christmas tree

I’m a bit of a stickler when it comes to decorations.  Decorations are 2 colours only (well, purple, silver and clear), and are suitable placed starting large, and moving smaller before filling in the gaps and depth with any other large plain baubles.  I still ended up with masses left over – cheaper ones I bought years ago for fillers before building up our single bauble collection.  N is very good because he will place them where I tell him, although in the end he was happy enough just putting them round the back of the tree so I let him do what he wanted there.

Now I just have to stop him from playing with the lights.  He’s discovered that there’s a button to make the lights flash and fade.

O Christmas Tree

We have an artificial Christmas tree.  As a child we did have a real tree for a while.  It was brought back in from the garden each year, and planted back out, until my mum realised she got urticaria from it, and bought a fancy artificial tree instead.  So an artifical one does the job for me – saves me going out to choose one, bring it home, water it, keep it away from heating – hard to do when it’s in our living room in between wood burner and radiator.

I also like the consistency of our tree.  Each year I know it’ll look the same, it’ll fit in the space we have and it’s easy to decorate.  Last year I wanted to upgrade to a 7 ft one in the sales, but so many of the Christmas trees now are prelit – I don’t want a prelit one because I have my own gorgeous lights I want to use.  So the search will be on for this year’s sales.

building the Christmas tree

It is a bit embarrassing though.  One of the nephews sells real Christmas trees each year for extra pocket money.  The OH thinks we should have one from him, but he don’t do non-drop ones, and I’d be the one having to vacuum permanently.

decorating the christmas tree

N announced he was getting one from his cousin though, so I said he could have a small one for the back room/playroom to put all the odds and sods baubles on if there was a small one left.  Thankfully there’s been nothing more said about it though so I’m off the hook.

Turkeys

As well as Christmas trees, we also have a few turkeys on the farm for sale.  Last weekend was plucking weekend, when they’d all be killed, plucked and hung up, before being made ready for being boxed and collected.

A couple of friends come over to help the men pluck, and they work all day in one of the boxes, surrounded by flying white feathers.  N wanted to go and see what they were doing again, so they found him a chair, sat him down and he watched what they were doing.

turkeys plucked

I’m surprised he didn’t traipse feathers back into the house later because his uncle had shoved feathers down his back, and then one of the men had filled his wellies with feathers as well.  All good fun, and he was learning…although probably some bad language as well!

I can’t wait to have our turkey on Christmas day.  The OH told me it was a 26lber, but I hope not given there’s only 3 of us eating!  I guess we just get what’s left after all the people who’ve ordered specific sizes have had theirs.

Christmas cards

All of our Christmas cards have been written, posted or handed out.

Christmas cards

N got very excited about the little post boxes in school – each class has one so they post any cards into the right class’ box.  Every day N comes home with some more cards in his book bag.  He loves opening them and trying to read the name of who it’s from…although he’s getting stuck on ‘it begins with ‘l’ mummy?’.  That’ll be ‘love XXX’.

I was really impressed that he wrote his name in all the cards he sent – I think there were 28 of them.  He’s got the longest name by far out of his class (well, 1 more letter than his best friend’s), so it was hard work but he did it.  I hope he feels pleased that he wrote them himself too.  Although maybe next year he’ll be happy to write the whole card and not just his name.

Presents

I’ve only got a couple more presents to buy – an additional gift for the OH, something for the in laws, and then to bake (I’m planning Christmas biscotti) for the family.  I’ve also got 3 birthdays to buy for straight after Christmas as well, so it’s a bit mad having to think of those too.

Are you all set for Christmas?  What’ve you got left to do?

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15 Comments

  1. We once had a real one and it was the worst thing ever. I was finding needles in the carpet for months after. A nice fake one looks just as good. Even better sometimes as they do such good fake ones now. x

  2. Gorgeous baubles. I am all done now. 90% of the wrapping has been done so hopefully I will be able to chill this week. popping over from Mummy2Monkeys

  3. What a great experience for N seeing all sides of Christmas preparations! Your tree sounds very organised. This is our first year in our house so we are starting to get our collection of decorations. I ordered some cheap baubles from Amazon but also got a few other wooden deocrations. We are going with a bit of a red and white theme and I bought some little figures too that are like the ones both R’s and my family had when we were growing up. Oliver gets a new decoration each year from my in laws, which I love. I love all the random unique decorations against the uniformity of the red baubles. We’ve also got some clear baubles which we put a few things in too and hung on the tree

    #thelist

    1. Ooh I love a red and white scandinavian style. And the idea of giving a bauble each year is great. Someone mentioned they bought each child one each year so by the time they left home they have their own set.

  4. I still have a fair amount of gift buying to do. But hoping to get it finished over the next day or so. I also have several birthdays to buy for including one on Boxing day so can relate to that too. Have a lovely Christmas xx

    1. Yep boxing day and 29th birthdays here, plus 3 in January. Just the 29th one to buy for – he’s getting money for Christmas, so want to get him something to open!

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