OK, I’m going to put something out there that will become true because once you’ve said it, it has to doesn’t it?
WE ARE GOING TO HAVE A CHRISTMAS TREE THIS YEAR.
There, I’ve said it. It MUST be true. You see we’ve not had a tree (or, to be completely honest any decorations at all) for the last five years. The first year was a humanitarian decision based on kindness to Archie who was doddery and crotchety and we were worried he’d blunder into the tree, get tangled up in broken glass, needles and electricity and then wouldn’t let us extract him. We could only see a bad outcome from that scenario so we decided not to have one that year. The following Christmas we had a small, though beautifully formed, puppy who would, I’m sure, have loved to play with a tree in the house so again, we decided to give it a miss. Since then, we’ve been out and looked at trees each year, winced at their price and decided to try for a Christmas Eve smash and grab bargain but have failed each year to get one at all.
We’ve decided that this year is going to be the year that we break out of terminal bah humbug syndrome and get a tree for the first time in years. We’re not going to recoil at the price, simply dig deep into the pocket and stump up the money regardless. Our living room isn’t exactly spacious so we’re going to put it outside the window, lit with LED lights and tied up with ribbons so no breakable stuff.
I’m hoping that our effort will look a little better than this “tree”, which is the centrepiece of Plymouth’s Christmas decorations. I know it’s not exactly shown in its finery as it is not dark enough to see the lights properly but nonetheless I don’t rate it much.