A house called Noel.

Decorative and sentimental name baubles, artfully placed.

And so this is Christmas...

And what have you done...?

Well,  put the tree up for one thing.

Well really, the kids did it.  I no longer do very much apart from spending an hour disentangling the lights and swearing a lot.

Unbelieveable. How do they get so tangled in a box for 11 months doing nothing.

We had to wait for Sarah to return from a playdate on Saturday afternoon before we were allowed to start.  Fair enough.

Josh, Issy and I brought up the boxes from the basement.  Issy tipped them all out on the floor.  Like so.

We waited.

I put up the house decorations, my peace letters, the nativity and my NOEL.

Noel lives here. 

When I first put up my NOEL, my father in law, a man I love dearly, came to visit one day and said, "I didn't realise you'd named your house Noel.".

Yeah, Dad's joke.

The nativity is very contentious, with everyone thinking they know how best to arrange it.  At the moment they are in a circle like they're having an important meeting or perhaps dancing a hornpipe around baby Jesus.  Because of the novelty factor, it changes hourly.

So after a bit of waiting, Issy suggested we just get the tree out of the box and put it near it's chosen location so it was easier to assemble when Sarah came.

We did that.  And waited.

Josh suggested we just put the tree up but not put any decorations on it, so we were all ready when Sarah came.

We did that too.  And waited some more.

Us...waiting.  

Issy suggested just maybe putting a bauble on the bottom, tucked in against the trunk, just to get started.

I drew the line.  I already knew we were on thin ice.

Weird headgear helps to pass the time.

We waited a bit longer, and finally she came.  And walked in the door, immediately bursting into floods of tears because we'd "put the tree up and hadn't waited for her at all and it wasn't FAIR".

No it wasn't.  But neither was waiting around in 35 degree heat for the best part of an hour.

We dissembled the tree, and reassembled it.  That seemed to do the trick.

Finally a bit of action.  I'm still untangling the f***ing lights at this point. 

Xmas tree or tinsel monster?  It's a tough call.  

And so we put up the tree.  Yep,  looks like someone's chundered Christmas decos all over the place doesn't it?

I wouldn't change a thing.

PS. We have a fake tree.  We grew up in Queensland, Mike and I, and we have no fond memories of the smell of pine.  Anyone we knew who tried to put up a real tree struggled to keep the poor thing alive until Christmas day.  Plastic is the way to go with an average temperature of 28 and high humidity.