I’ve been a good girl, and look, they’re a snip at just €445.

I think these are the ones that Flirty calls ’shoulder shoes’. Ahem. Click here to visit Jimmy Choo, especially if you’re my husband wishing to choose me a Christmas present. Or just for the rest of you to drool some more.

So, we finally made it out Christmas tree hunting yesterday. A family vote (bar #1, who sulked all the way there) decided that we couldn’t be arsed to drive all the way down to the Christmas tree farm near Ballyboghal where we got the tree from before, so we ended up back at Woodies (fast becoming my second home). They had a good selection and, ignoring old sulky drawers, we chose a rather spectacular eight footer, plus piles of tinsel, baubles, candles and other necessities). The drive home was interesting, with a kind of vehicle-based ‘Twister’ game seeing us all just about jammed in along with the tree.

After positioning the monster (it really is beautiful - the stunned silence of #1 speaking volumes), Hubby and I took Bertie the Christmas Poo (I didn’t name him, honest) for a walk to get armfuls of ivy and holly branches and we spent the whole afternoon happily decorating (actually that’s a lie, we spent the afternoon arguing and decorating). The finished result looking like the tree had been covered in a kind of multi-coloured sparkly vomit (all my ‘less is more’ plans being totally over-ridden). Ah well, it’s certainly festive, and I got to decorate the unfeasibly expensive fireplace with the berried holly, candles and ivy, so at least that’s tasteful.

Once upon a time, back when blue eyeshadow was trendy the last time round and people had Angel Delight for pudding, the Disreputable one would drag out the tattered old paper bells that looked like they said ‘Good Suet’ but actually spelt ‘Good Luck’, the awful stuffed birds whose feet he wired to the tree, and all those expandable paper balls that he stuck to the ceiling (remember those? - kind of multicolour crepe concertina yokes). Me Mam and I would bemoan the lack of restraint in his decorating technique but would share a secret smile and actually feel dead Christmassy when we finally turned the lights off and took our first look at the tree in all its glory. Ahhhh. I love Christmas.

So Woodies then. Well, they had twinkly lights, rope lights, flashing lights, static lights, indoor lights, outdoor lights, flashing blue LED lights…. So we bought LOTS. And then couldn’t fit them all on the tree, hence…

DISCO STAIRS!

… you get the decorations out for the first time and the dog gets decorated by the children.

I like to call this one ‘Cross Dog with Fairy Lights’. Look carefully, he’s in there somewhere. Lubly.

Yes, folks, just 24 whole sleeps until Santa comes which means it’s officially Christmas time in our house whether ol’ Humbug Hubby likes it or not. This means that we’ll shortly be taking a visit to the Christmas tree farm (and shouting ‘timberrrrr’ in a very unseemly fashion) and I’m off to Woodies today to get gutter hooks for our outside lights - woohoo!

So, then, plenty of rummaging to be done today in various boxes still not unpacked from the move to unearth the decorations and decide on a colour scheme. Even though I know that I’ll go mad once the tree is up and probably bung every single decoration I own onto it before I can stop myself. On our walk yesterday, Bertie and I discovered a tree with beautiful red berries on its bare branches, which I shall walk back down and pinch today to go across my mantelpiece along with some ivy also snaffled from the hedgerow. Ooh. How eco-friendly of me.

Oh, talking of eco-friendly, here’s a bit of garden news for you. The beech hedge is coming on nicely and our lovely garden-guru chappy persuaded us to nip the tops off to encourage them to bush out (even though we really just want them as tall as possible). And did I tell you that our new trees are in place in the garden? Hubby and I had many a marital disagreement but settled on a row of Mountain Ash between us and the cows, a little gaggle of Himalayan Birch (like Silver Birch only whiter - beautiful) down the bottom corner near the road, and a willow to weep prettily over the drive. The disagreements on where to site our beautiful new spruce, destined to become our outdoor Christmas tree for years to come, have reached epic proportions so it still sits forlornly in its pot by the garage. Here, though, are the birches and Mountain Ashes in all their spindly glory. Okay so I know they’re small, but hey…size isn’t everything.