Terry was absolutely adamant that we should go ahead with the plan anyway, and still put the Christmas tree up on the 1st of December, with all of the fanfare we’d planned.

I, however, was equally adamant that I’d need that special time to finish packing for the holiday, panic about packing for the holiday, and then lie awake worrying that the plane was going to crash. (As it turned out, I also needed that time to remove all of my carefully applied eyelash extensions. It’s… a long story…) So, once again, we were forced to compromise, and that’s how we came to be Those People who have their Christmas tree up in November. And, OK, it was the very last day of November, true, but still: NOVEMBER. CHRISTMAS TREE. WHO EVEN AM I ANY MORE?

The tree, as I mentioned previously, is the Blue Mountain Spruce, c/o Cox & Cox. The extra large stars and tree topper are also from there, and most of the rest of the decorations are from The Range – with the exception of the little owl, who I found in a local garden centre, and picked up purely because he reminded me of Ron Weasley’s owl, Pigwidgeon. Well, I couldn’t possibly have left him behind after that, could I?

As you can (hopefully) also see, Terry also draped the living room in fairy lights: totally impossible to photograph, obviously, but I’ve featured them on my Instagram Stories, and am sure they’ll pop up again sooner or later, so if you’re following me over there, I’m sure you’ll have seen them.

The tree-shaped advent calendar, meanwhile, was a gift from my parents to Max, and my mum not only customised it herself, she’s also filled it up with lots of little notes and treats, which he was very excited to open the next morning:

Speaking of Max, when I posted these photos on Instagram, I had a few ‘Just You Wait’ messages from people wondering how on earth we could be so brave/stupid as to dare to have a Christmas tree when we have an 11-month-old, and gleefully reminding me that people with babies aren’t allowed to have nice things, because the baby will surely destroy them! LOL!

Well, my only answer to that, I guess, is that we’re just not planning to let him get close enough to it – or not unsupervised, anyway – for him to be able to pull things off it, or whatever. I suppose there’s always the risk of him sneaking under our radar and wreaking havoc anyway, but we live with that threat daily, and have become quite adept at pulling things out of the way seconds before he grabs them, so I think we’re just going to hope for the best with this one.

This was Max’s face when he heard me say that:

(His jumper is from H&M, btw –  I can’t find it on the website, but I did find these matching booties, which I’m just KICKING myself for not buying, seriously…)

Anyway. At the time of writing, the tree is still standing, and is still intact – although, because we’ve been in Tenerife for the past week, that’s really only two days we’ve managed to get through with it so far. Wish us luck…