’tis The Season to be Holly

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The festive season has arrived and at this time of the year we love to deck our homes with festive deco and cheer, we rush out and buy our trees and an abundance of decorative items to put on them, and just about blow the fuses at the national grid with all of our Christmas lights!!
I am no exception and at home we have already installed our 6ft Nordmans pine tree and decked it in white and clear glass deco and it looks lovely, we have also put up our 6ft tree in our garden with twinkling white lights and makes a really nice statement at night time when its at its best especially on a really dreary night.

To me real trees are a must have and you cant beat the smell of a freshly cut pine in the home, there are some draw backs with needle drop but with the best care this can all but most be eliminated, when i get my tree home i always cut about 2inches of trunk off from the base as this removes the healed up cut and then allows the tree to take up moisture that it needs to keep it fresh, i have a tree stand that allows you to put water in it and holds around four litres of water which is ideal in a warm home and a healthy tree can consume around a litre of water a day so a regular top up is good for keeping things fresh.

Never place a fresh tree near a radiator if you can help it because this will dry it out very quickly and your tree will be bald of needles even before Santa arrives! believe me its happened to me before and i learned the hard way of having to splash out on a replacement!

When i put the lights up i always use a circuit breaker at the power point because its better be safe than sorry and isn’t worth the risk of fire just for the sake of saving a few quid and doing without, lights can get very hot after being on for a while and could easily set alight.

I also like to have a few festive house plants dotted around the home, they add a bit of colour and really make things feel a bit more homely, i always have the old favourites like the odd poinsettia and a couple of cyclamen and been known to have a dabble with the good old Christmas cactus which never fails to impress with its mass of pink flowers, there’s such a good range of plants available now at this time of year and there’s bound to be something that fits your bill!

Flowering bulbs are a good choice and you can buy them ready potted up, usually three bulbs in a planter with a flush of growth already on them and with a good spot on the window sill and a little water they are more or less guaranteed to be flowering on the big day.

Miniature narcissus are good choice and are available in a range of forms, my favourite being ‘tette a tette’ and flowering hyacinths are good and come in some really vibrant colours too, and there are other favourite like the flowering solanum which is well known for its mini orange fruits that look a little like tomatoes (beware these fruits are poisonous).

Another choice i make is a nice holly wreath on my front door, i always buy mine from my local market in crook and spruce it up a little with a few twinkle lights just to add a bit of bling (again i use a circuit breaker on this too!), these need no care at all really as they are outside in the elements so get plenty of watering with our inclement weather!

Its amazing what you can pick up at your local market and i like to visit the odd Christmas fair too, and top up with the odd bottle of homemade ginger wine(non alcoholic of coarse!!) and not forgetting a sprig of mistletoe!(just in case!)

Christmas is the time to be festive and get together with your friends and family and with the so called “credit crunch” upon us its a chance to unwind a little and just enjoy ourselves, so whatever you do or whom ever you spend it with have ” A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS“.