First of all I'd like to say thanks to you all for your lovely comments and Christmas wishes. I really appreciate them and love reading them all.
We planted these conifers in our garden a few years ago. They started off as potted Christmas trees and we used them both inside and outside the house decorated with lights and so on. We planned to cut the trees, once big enough, to use as our main Christmas tree inside. Then replace with a new baby tree, keeping the cycle going. But we never actually did it. It seemed such a drastic thing to do!
This year we looked for a tree to use with my handmade decorations but couldn't find any that we liked. So we came home and the husband cut this one - the one right in the middle of the picture - and brought it inside. It's just as well for, although it doesn't look particularly big growing in the garden, we wouldn't want it any bigger for the house.
And here it is - decorated with all my handmade decorations. You can look back at them in more detail here and here.
Here is the finished tree topper.
This is my second attempt at a robin (again based on Jacquie's owl pattern) and I really, really love it. Robins have a lighter coloured underbelly so I just wasn't completely happy with my first robin that had only a red belly.
My hedgehog family have come to live below the tree. They're very happy there; it's warm and dry and they can find tasty morsels of mince pie and shortbread crumbs when we've gone to bed.
We have another real tree (that sounds a bit strange as all trees are real - by real I mean not artificial) in the sunroom. It is decorated with a variety of baubles we've collected over the years. We have quite a lot of Waterford baubles which we bought in after-Christmas sales. They are big so you don't need very many of them. We certainly won't be buying any more!
This is our ancient artificial tree that stands in the hall and is decorated with a heap of gold and silver decorations. Not for any theme's sake but simply because I have them. At some stage in the past I must have gone with a gold theme and then changed to a silver theme for another year.
The husband and I both love Christmas though not the commercialism that goes with it. We like it simple and with family and friends. The husband is keen to decorate using simple things like greenery from the garden. This is what he did with some of our holly and ivy ...
The carnations aren't from our garden! I bought them in the market in Banbridge.
Well, here we are; Christmas Eve! Can you believe it? I certainly can't. It only remains for me to wish you all a very lovely Christmas. Enjoy it immensely.