Step 3: Give A Tree A Home For Christmas 2006

The day arrives when the Tree, all new-born and branches nicely spread, manages to stand upright on its own and is ready for it's first outfit of the season.

Drape some lights around it's naked form. And then some more. Never underestimate the importance of lights and colour. My lights are always multicoloured but this year I've added some white twinkling ones as well. Turn them all on and make suitable adjustments to ensure the Tree is adequately covered.

Then add strings of pearls and jewels to provide the foundation for the glittering ornaments to follow. Do not stint on this important base - it will show if you try to do it on the cheap.

Then strategically place ornaments, toys and treasured objects on each branch creating a vision of splendour. Finish off my throwing some 'icicles' over the Tree to add that final bit of glimmer and shimmer. Et voila! The Perfect Christmas Tree.

Of course, that is the plan and it rarely happens by clockwork. One must make it work. This year, for example, the major panic was over Roxy the Rockette, my pride-and-joy bauble picked up from the Radio City Music Hall shop in New York in November 2005 after seeing the Christmas Spectacular - I thought I'd lost her, where could she be? And then (phew) I found the elusive Roxy sitting on her bauble in a secure box in which she shouldn't have been... but she's safe and sitting proudly on the Tree.

I haven't put the crowning glory on the Tree this year, a glass Christmas 'star' my mother bought a few decades ago, the like of which isn't available any more. I treat it as a family heirloom and it's carefully packed in an old single malt scotch tube for safety. I don't know why I didn't put it on the top of the Tree but I'm pleased I didn't - the thing fell down yesterday and it would've been smashed! That was a close call. The ornament is staying packed away this year - it's irreplaceable and I'm not risking it.

I like adding new ornaments each year, not a lot and not a complete change, incremental is best. Last Christmas saw a few additions from New York and one from Toronto, so the main addition this year is the twinkling white lights. Christmas Trees need a sense of history, things from hither and thither over the years, and mine is maturing quite nicely. The Tree might only be with me for a short time but he brightens the gloom of late December and early January. Unfortunately, the bauble in the centre of this photo (from Macy*s) was one of the casualties of The Great Fall Of 2006 so won't be seen again...

Merry Christmas to ALL!