Step into Christmas

I'm not usually somebody who puts the Christmas tree up as early as is reasonable (when I say reasonable I mean the beginning of December NOT the beginning of November like one house in our town) but this year December 1st it was. There were a number of reasons for this; the first is that it was very cold and miserable and we had to light the fire (in spite of the fact it's the first day of summer!). It still does not seem right to me to have Christmassy things happen in warm weather and on light evenings so the opportunity to decorate the house in 'traditional' Christmas weather could not be missed. The second factor was that my sister, Sally, had sent us two parcels full of Christmas presents which really needed somewhere to live for the next three weeks and where better than under the tree? The third factor was that I have recently accquired a cheesy Christmas album (from the church garage sale so didn't spend lots of pennies - well cents - on trash) so that was in place to add to the atmosphere. Neil was not impressed with the latter at all but Matthew seemed to giggle while I danced round the room with him - he was probably thinking his mother is barking mad.
Anyway, I have included a picture but it's not very clear because by the time the tree was decorated we were all roasting as the sun had come out and was streaming through the window - you couldn't even tell there were any lights on the tree!