Baubles

The second Sunday in December sees the Christmas tree erected and the decorations loaded on, in record time, as out of the storage boxes were selected this year’s colour scheme of blue and gold, supplemented as ever by a hotchpotch of those hardy perennials accumulated over the years as a result of three influences: first, when the kids were small we each chose a new decoration each year, building competing armies of tat, led in my case by the jolly snowman; second, a tendency to acquire souvenir baubles from trips such as to Disney, Harrods and, this summer, the Guinness brewery; and third, my wife’s recently home-crafted additions of variable verisimilitude but indisputable character, such as the tubby gingerbread man.