Deck the Halls

I love this time of year. People leaving their curtains open just a bit so you can see their Christmas trees all lit up like... well, Christmas trees. It's a sight to warm the coldest evening. Entire forests appear almost overnight. But what you never get to see is anyone putting up the tree and decorating it. One day the window's bare; the next it's proudly filled with six-foot of fir and strung with tiny coloured lights. Don't you ever gaze at someone else's tree and wonder how they did it?

Last year Charlie had little Christmas lights in his eyes for the first time; he saw the tree and tried to touch but couldn't quite reach. This year there was nothing - short of suspending either it or him from the ceiling - that we were ever going to do to stop him reaching for the baubles. So we thought we'd make a virtue of necessity and let him help out with the decorating. Well, sort of. He enjoyed himself. Even if Sally and Sarah did move most of the tinsel when he wasn't looking.

This post is part of Violet Posy's Christmas Decoration Carnival. Do pop over there and take a look at the other splendid entries. It's a bit like walking past a dozen wonderfully festive-looking houses. Only without the risk of getting frostbite.