My advent calendar told me today there are only 14 days to go. All around the town there are trees and lights and decorations – it's definitely beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Our house is still bare … And will be till Katie is home from university as she is our Christmas Tree Elf and will be decorating the tree – and the entire house, if I know Katie – on Thursday.
Our Xmas decorations are a mixed old bag. Some of them belonged to my grandma; some were acquired through Freecycle a few years ago; others have been bought in dribs and drabs as and when the budget allowed. We even have some home made decorations from our first Christmas as a single parent family, when money was tight but we spent a splendid Sunday afternoon collecting pine cones and holly, baking salt dough stars and spraying them all gold.
I'm planning on buying a few new decorations for our tree this year but I need your help. Inspire me … Show me your tree, tinsel or favourite baubles! I'd love to see your photos, so leave a link in the comments below, or email me your picture and I'll feature them all on another blog post – along with some photos of our tree!
Lots of my Christmas tree decorations were given to me as gifts by my Auntie Helen who has given me a decoration for my tree on most of my birthdays for the past 40 years (as I was born on the 1st of December), so that’s lovely because so many of the things on my tree have sentimental value to me. Others were passed on to me by my Mum when she wanted to have different things on her tree and finally, in recent years, my Christmas decoration collection has been added to quite signifcantly by several trips to various German Christmas markets with my family. I know that’s probably not a practical option for you this year but I can’t recommend it highly enough for future years – it’s a fab way to get into the Christmas spirit and the Christmas decorations I brought back from Germany are just beautiful.
Plenty of German markets here to go to, cheaper than travelling 😉
As it is it turned out we actually have quite a lot of baubles etc after all – a few are home made, a few came from my gran etc. We bought some tinsel and ceiling garlands and are looking very festive now!