Behind the lens of our photo shoot : beautiful Christmas tree

This photo from our Christmas photoshoot two years ago always makes me smile.

Meg, our model looks so serene wrapping a cwtchie by the beautifully decorated Christmas tree.

This was NOT the scene in that same lounge a few days earlier!

My three sons have always loved putting up the Christmas tree. Even now, as teenagers and young adults, they are actually willing to help bring the decorations down from the attic. Out comes a box of After Eights, and on goes the Christmas music.

Half an hour later, they’d emptied all the boxes and tipped the Christmas decorations all over the carpet!!

The string lights are being pulled in all directions in an effort to untangle them. It’s chaos!

Every year is the same: the excitement of putting up the tree ends with my sons wrestling each other on the floor, rolling around on the decorations, stepping on the Christmas lights, and deciding that putting up the tree is just too much work.

I’m hoping that this Saturday, when we decorate the tree, it will be different! (But it never is.)

I hope you have a calmer time putting up your Christmas tree and also with getting rid of the tree!

If decorating the Christmas tree sounds stressful and chaotic, then read no further!

The disposal of the Christmas tree was even worse.

The tree came wrapped in netting, so it fit easily through the door. However it wasn’t as easy getting it out the door.

I asked my sons to help me wrap the tree in blankets and then carry it out to the pavement.

Blankets? No need for blankets!

One of my three sons had a much better idea!

Why wrap the tree in blankets when he could trim a little off and we could carry it straight through?

He trimmed and trimmed until the floor of the hall was covered in pine needles.

Why did I listen to him??

It was more like a twig than a Christmas tree on the pavement that year.

Never again. The secateurs have been well and truly hidden!

Anna xx