A very badgery Christmas

I like Christmas. Really quite a lot. To the point where I start obsessing about it around mid-October: composing gift lists, looking up recipes, composing seasonal playlists (best Christmas song eva? Easy. Pogues, Fairytale of New York. Epic.), plotting guerrilla decorating raids, wrapping myself in tinsel and hanging baubles off every appendage - that sort of thing. I suppose this obsession must stem from my childhood (and sister badger is similarly mental about the festive season, going into palpitations over the merest whiff of a warm mince pie and starting to sob if she hears the opening chords of The Snowman). I'm not saying we were spoiled, but we did get a lot of presents. And my parents may have spiked the turkey with happy pills. And let us lick the brandy off the pudding instead of lighting it. Who knows? Whatever the reason, December 1st-24th is an EXTREMELY EXCITING TIME FOR ME.

I get so worked up, in fact, that the day itself can hardly hope to live up to all the hype. I mean, how could it? Even if a live reindeer burst out of my Christmas pudding and starting pooing beribboned presents all over the living room, it still couldn't quite justify my months of build up. After all, once you're past the age of twelve, you start to realize it is just another day, albeit one on which you try to eat yourself to death and go bankrupt through excessive present buying simultaneously.

Which is, of course, why I decided to have a baby. Because it's all about the kiddies, right? Seeing their happy little faces as they realize that that Father Christmas dude was totally fooled by their pretending to be good, and brought them all of the noisy stuff they've been demanding for the best part of a year. And they give you a great excuse to go completely over the top and get childishly excited, even when they're only 5 months old and have absolutely no idea what's going on.

And so I declared that we needed to get our tree at the first opportunity, which translated to the first weekend in December. I demanded a real tree, because nothing says Christmas better than a steadily dying fir in the corner of your living room. We went to Blenheim Palace, which is only about 20 minutes away from us, as we'd heard tell that their trees were dipped in Christmas magicness and guaranteed to fill a house with 100% more Christmas cheer or your money back. And, my, we got a beauty. Which I then proceeded to cover with every piece of sparkly tat and tinselly ridiculousness until it's branches were sagging and you could hear the poor thing whimpering for mercy.

"No more. Please no more! Have pity on my firry soul!" (if trees could talk)

And then it was time to introduce Lumpy to the tree, who we had Christened Norman, because he is a Nordman Fir (have you noticed we have a habit of personifying inanimate objects? Isn't it cute? What? No? Oh.)

Now, you must excuse the exceptional crappness of the pictures that follow. I was alone in the house at the time, and had to juggle Lumpy with one arm, while attempting to take pictures with my iPhone. This was not easy, as my child has eight limbs, at least. I was clearly actually impregnated by an octopus and not a badger without noticing. Don't say that hasn't happened to you before.)

First signs were positive. And then... Well, you'll see.

OMFG. A tree. A treeeeeeee!

Bauble!! Baublebaublebauble! Flap flap flap.

Ohhhh, this sparkly stuff look interesting.

Me just have closer looks.

Mmmm, is tasty. Nom nom snarf snarf urrp.

At which point I dropped the phone and ripped the tinsel from his snapping chops. And thus Lumpy narrowly avoided getting tinsellitis.*

(*This last joke was shamelessly stolen from my friend May. Who is a comedy genius.)