The tree is up! Like a lot of people, I look forward to choosing and decorating the Christmas tree. We have no set traditions about it. We buy from the guy with a stand at the local shopping centre – he asks a fair price and always has a lovely shape of tree. Over the past few years the boys have come to have a say in the shape and size of tree we pick and we can usually all agree on one.

The Bavarian likes to leave the tree to settle for a couple of days before decorating it. To me this is torture, a naked tree standing in the livingroom, crying out to be draped in fairy lights and decorations. Luckily this year we were going to my in-laws for the weekend and had the bright idea to buy the tree before we left. When we came home on Sunday we were able to launch straight into the decorating.

I hauled all the decorations up from the cellar. They are very easy to find, despite the chaos down there, because we store them in these lovely old tins The Bavarian salvaged years before we ever had the children. The tins are so festive and pretty, that I leave them under the tree once the decorations have been hung (another of my lazy organisation life hacks).

For the first time ever, the boys were full of motivaton to hang the decorations and, I must say, they made a great job of it.

We don’t have any particular theme in terms of style or colour. There are plenty of whites and reds – snowflakes, candy canes (the children insisted last year), snowmen, toadstools, santas, angels – but also gold stars, felt deer, a Newbridge spinner and plenty more.

Having a very good memory, I remember where most of the decorations came from, whether bought or received as a gift. The children have inherited my memory skills and can tell me the story behind many of the decorations too. Some they remember themselves- the squirrel we bought in Regensburg, the tin baubles that came as a gift, filled with sweets. For others they know the tale from my telling it -the angel my mother posted to me the Christmas I spent in Sydney, the bauble she sent me on my Chritmas in Munich, the glass mistletoe from Villeroy & Boch that was damaged the year the tree fell over, the ceramic blue and white baubles from a pre-children trip to Amsterdam. It is wonderful to see the boys taking an interest in dressing the tree and telling stories. Maybe a tradition will develop after all.