Our living room, Christmas tree and for Perkies, a close up of George our guard giraffe who is also in the festive spirit. We also have a new giraffe you should be able to see. His name is Barney because he is made out of recycled beer cans and so when Jen got him as a birthday present from her mum, I drunkenly proclaimed that he was a party giraffe and so was the Barney to George's Ted.

This is the extent of the decorations in our house. Having an exam on 19th December meant I didn't have chance to put then up before then and we've barely been home since. Oops.

You had a tree before December. I very nearly deleted the entire forum.

Very sensible, those Dutch

Yes, and polite for the most part. However, a friend bumped into a couple of the Utd strikers 10 years back. He said Solskaer was great but the Dutch man was Ruud.

In a valiant display of procrastination (not pro-craster-nation, that's something else entirely), I've found myself looking through all your pictures of christmas trees from 3-4 years ago. Christ, camera phones were shit back then.

In a valiant display of procrastination (not pro-craster-nation, that's something else entirely), I've found myself looking through all your pictures of christmas trees from 3-4 years ago. Christ, camera phones were shit back then.

What ever happened to Decca?

She met us.

But doesn't he arrive from Spain (with his in no way racist helpers) towards the end of November?

Indeed, he currently roams the land until his fiesta on dec 5th and THEN we get our Christmas miracle where we wake up on dec 6th and all the shops have magically transformed into a Christmas wonderland.

And (allegedly) stole the pool balls.

Or, the weekend

Say what? Have I failed to remember a story?

Not only that, but you've failed to remember it after you asked about Decca the last time.

I don't think I'll bother with a tree this year - I'm not going to be at my place over Xmas anyway.

Get one of those pop-out pre-decorated ones. They're ace.

That sounds really fucking lazy.

SOLD

In January I pro-actively decided that this year we would want a real Christmas tree, so binned our fake one. It wasn't great, but serviceable for another 2/3 years if need be.

Last week, Oncologist told us we're not allowed a real Christmas tree.

Have just bought new £100 Christmas tree that probably isn't as good as the one I chucked.

Fucksticks.

Oh, that's a big shame. If you haven't put up your new tree, Tesco have a really nice and full 7-8ft tree for £60.

He could take the not so good £100 one back home.

. It'll keep her out of the coal for a while, at least.

So do your shops not stock Christmassy type things until December 5th? See, I wouldn't mind that, if (say) stores here did not have their Christmas ranges until December 1st, but it would make things really difficult for us as we usually have all our Christmas shopping done by early-mid November. Because of the nature of the workplace that Russell and I are in (head office of a large chain of retail outlets) our holidays are sanctioned around Christmas time, so nobody can take days off in December, so we'd be scuppered.

We'd still have the internet to shop by, I guess, but then we'd not see the wintery wonderland shops

Tree drunk.

I've always wanted a real tree one year but with 2 kids pulling off baubles, 4 cats climbing the branches and now a house rabbit who'll probably eat the bottom half, I can't help but think it's going to be a few years before I get to see out my wish.

4 CATS? 3 is bad enough!