I love decorating the tree. It's not an original love, but it's true.
I love the ritual of the decoration boxes coming down from the attic. I love that every year I forget what's in them, and am delighted by what I find. My favourites are the terrible things my children have made, which they leap on and are so proud of, and hang all in one very overwhelming section of the tree about a metre off the ground. I never redistribute them. I love how they love it.
I also love the bells, the jingles, the lights. I like to keep the tree on when the lights are off in the room, and set the timer for them to come on early, for the moment when I come down in the morning and get to see it before anyone else is up.
I love the pretty pieces too. The ones with no particular meaning to me, but maybe they glint or shine or move in the heat from the fire, or are just beautifully embroidered.
Then there's the greenery. Excessive amounts of it, strapped to the stair rods, over mantelpieces, on top of picture frames. There will be pine needles everywhere, but who cares. I love the smell and the freshness and the festivity.
I love baby oranges, at least six a day. I love how my mother-in-law saves the skins all year to make the festive fire smell nice. I love old-school Quality Street. I don't love the new wrappers (the old ones were so shiny and special), but I do love the world, so I accept they had to change. I love jellied fruit and Turkish delight. Christmas-only things which feel so decadent, and remind me of reading Narnia and my mind going to places it had never been before.
I love the cosiness of Christmas telly, the old films, the licence to curl up and watch them. I love wrapping while I watch Bridget Jones 1, 2, 3 and 4 in a row, deep into the night before Christmas, because I am never, ever, more organised than that.
Why is it that repeated things are comforting? Is it the peace of the full circle? Of a known outcome? A predictable finale? Maybe that's the joy of Christmas. The year ending where the last one began. Knowing that the hand-stitched felt Father Christmas will go back in the attic, and sleep soundly until next year when he'll come down and do his job again. The improbably turquoise papier mâché tiger who will still be improbably turquoise next year. The solid brass star and moon, joined this year by a bell. The knowns in a world of very many unknowns. The satisfaction of simple, hand-worked materials: hand-hammered brass, tiny carved wooden draughts pieces. These things can't be deleted, and they can't be made well by machines. And every December, there they are again.
