I’ve been in Christmas mode for months now. I think you sort of have to be when you have small children. The weeks fly by and I didn’t want to have a last minute panic to get sorted in December. So, I’ve been slowly buying Christmas presents since earlier in the year. There is an amazing charity shop just near my house, and the women who work there are very good at discretely hiding Christmas presents so Ebony doesn’t see what I’m buying. I’ve collected a couple of dressing up outfits from there, as well as some games and other bits. I also made a couple of solo trips to London this year which meant I could stock up on little Christmas presents from Tiger.
Her Christmas outfit, Christmas Eve pyjamas and main present are neatly hidden away upstairs. We made Christmas cards last month, made a trip to Ikea for a vegan gingerbread house and have bought all the gifts for friends and family. I think this is the most organised I’ve ever been. I love decorating the house for Christmas though we won’t be doing that until closer to the day itself. We always get a real tree to go in the front room and spend the festive period pulling pine needles out of our socks.
We use our conservatory as our dining room so that’s where we’ll be eating our Christmas dinner this year. When Christmas Tree World asked if I might like an artificial tree to review, I thought that would be the perfect way to add a little bit of festive cheer to that room of the house. They have a great selection of trees, including lots of stylish fibre optic ones. I chose the Arbor Vitae Fir Tree because I wanted one that looked real. I’m definitely a traditionalist when it comes to Christmas. I chose the 6ft tree which is currently retailing at £89.99.
It arrived quickly and we set straight to work constructing it in the conservatory. It took about an hour and a half because each branch needs to be fanned out and separated. It’s not a rigid plastic branch like other trees, instead the branches are wire and can be tweaked and molded to your specifications. The instructions were easy to follow and it came in a tough box that will be great for storage during the rest of the year (though I've been informed I should really be using a tree storage bag to protect the tree whilst it's shoved in the loft).
The finished tree is pretty huge, it’s 6ft so has a big diameter at the bottom, much like a real tree. Once the tree was constructed, Ebony decorated it with some homemade decorations. All of our other decorations are in the loft at the moment, so we made some specially to go on the new tree. The tree is pretty big though so I think we’ll need to make a few more decorations to fill it before Christmas Day!
