Festive Makeovers and Choosing Christmas Trees

Law Actually has been given its annual festive makeover today. I made a conscious decision to try and keep the design at the minimalist end of the spectrum, steering well clear of my usual tendency to use a hotchpotch of ill-suited colours and elements.

Quite where it ranks in the all-time list of Law Actually headers is anyone’s guess but it’ll do.

The house decorations are proving more of a headache. Rather unwisely, we decided to head out to B&Q* yesterday evening to pick up our Christmas tree. It was dark, blowing a gale and bucketing it down – hardly conducive to picking the perfect tree.

In all the circumstances, I thought we’d done a pretty good job of selecting a nice looking and well-proportioned specimen. Having successfully manhandled it in and out of the car, we duly plonked the tree in the shed overnight (without a bucket of water I might add – it, like us, was wet enough already).

Anyhow, I had quite a shock this afternoon when I took it out of the shed to erect the fine-needled beast in all its glory.

As Christmas trees go, it’s been blessed with looks only its mother could love. Darkness, wind and rain aside, I’m still rather bemused how we managed to overlook the fact its trunk is about as straight as quasimodo’s back.

Still, it’s got character, I suppose.

We haven’t had chance to decorate it yet – that delight awaits us later on this week.

Just like every other year, I had to look online to remind myself of the recommended method for trimming a Christmas tree’s trunk to aid optimal water absorption.

It seems that 90 degrees is the generally favoured approach. Although some recommend cutting the trunk at a shallow angle for maximum surface area, angled cuts seem to have fallen rather out of vogue.

So there you go.

^{*Other DIY and hardware stores are available. Consult your yellow pages the Internet. :p}