We were beaten though…a neighbour a couple of flats across has their christmas lights up around their window box flashing away like crazy and I think they could be seen from space!

We seem to have our own little routines on putting the tree up each year…

1. I struggle up the loft fumbling in the dark with a torch searching for the boxes with all the decorations in them and not forgetting the tree.
2. Faith-Lee starts turning out the boxes of decorations and baubles.
3. I put the tree together and start pulling the branches about to make it resemble a pine tree of some sort.
4. The fun begins…the decoration of the tree…

…The decoration of the tree is usually all of our jobs, however Faith-Lee then decides it’s her job and takes control and gets bossy asking for this bauble and that santa claus decoration etc. In the end the tree is decorated by Faith-Lee and she is really chuffed with herself on all that hard work she has done, but bless her she has placed all the baubles and decorations almost on a handful of branches on one side off the tree.

So once she has gone to bed myself and Julia then move the decorations around so that they are evenly spread around the tree and thankfully she doesn’t notice that we have done the rearranging the next morning! Although saying that she probably has noticed but is too polite to tell us…naaah…she would of told us where we went wrong knowing our little precious cherub!!

Off course putting up the christmas tree wouldn’t be the same if it wasn’t for the tree lights! Every year I place the lights around the tree strategically around the tree and plug them in…yes you got it…they don’t work! Why is that? or is it one of those questions that cannot be answered?

However this year was different for the christmas tree lights! The reason for them not working could be answered..oh yes, but not straight away! I placed the lights around the tree and quite pleased with myself and Julia and Faith-Lee stood back in anticipation for the lights to be turned on. I place the plugs in the socket and…nothing!

I pull the plugs out of the socket and place them back in, but still no lights – I have to try this a couple of more times because you never know they may decide to work. It could be that they haven’t been used in a year and they haven’t quite woken up yet, or something like that. But of course thats not the reason and we all know that!

So off come the lights with a few choice words, like something along the lines of “Why do we need these blasted lights!” (”blasted” being replaced with something else). The traditional procedure of starting from one end of the lights (still plugged in) and start fiddling with each bulb and seeing if its blown or pushed in…but as I said earlier this year was different they were all pushed in fine until I got to the very last one (why is it always the last one?) and noticed the bulb was missing and as usual you never have a spare bulb!

I got to the point if thinking that this was it, we wouldn’t be having lights on the christmas tree this year until I told Julia that the bulb was missing. This was then the moment Julia asked what this object she was holding in her hand was…I took a look at the object and noticed that it was the missing bulb from the lights! J was getting ready to throw it away because she thought it was a bit of rubbish from the christmas decoration box…”phew”, what a relief, the lights worked and I could strategically place them around the tree again.

We now have a lovely decorated tree up in our living room for all to admire! Until Christmas is over and we have to take it all back down again. Then the nightmare…urm…I mean the tradition of putting the tree up starts all over again…Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!