Now a number of years ago, I made the decision to go against tradition (and according to my wife Niki, all things natural) and buy a fake plastic tree. I dreamt of a time when pine needles were no longer a feature of the festive period and I thought by making a wise investment this utopia would be within reach. Indeed for six or seven years this was the case, the hoover lay silent just like Jesus in the manger.

Sure there was the odd difficulty getting the overweight lump of plastic in and out of the attic. And there was that time when the stairway carpet received a slight incision as I tried to slide the thing downwards without fully assessing the consequences. Boy do I never get to live that one down!

But over the last few years Niki has mounted a very successful political campaign to get the children on board (bloody snowflakes) with her idea that natural trees capture the true essence of Christmas, i.e. celebrating the birth of a baby in a stable in the middle east with a gaudy evergreen bush! So slowly but surely the natural tree (and the associated pine needles) has made a return to our household. Well at least I thought that would spare us the ordeal of getting the fake one (I swear it gets heavier every year) in and out of that attic hatch (I swear it gets smaller every year). But oh no, now we have a situation where we are doubling up on trees, twice the fun for all!!

This year, not happy with rubbing my nose in it about our double Christmas tree situation, Niki decided to raise the stakes even further. This year we were going to chop down our own Christmas tree, when I say chop down I mean watch a man chainsaw it in front of us. So last weekend we headed north to somewhere between Swords and Ashbourne to track through a muddy field and choose our own tree (Niki and the kids chose the one the farthest distance possible from our car) to be slaughtered in front of us. It felt a bit like choosing a lobster from a tank before eating it. I think Niki was trying to make an argument that this was more environmentally friendly, a bit like a hunter eating his own prey but I was too busy listening to the tree screaming as it was ripped from its roots. The kids seemed to enjoy it though!

Previous trips home with a Christmas tree had been of the very short variety so there was a quite a bit of hand-wringing as we strapped the tree to the roof of our car and headed back home. I say “we” but really Niki strapped it while I just stood there going “I’m not sure we’re going to make it on those bumpy and winding roads of north county Dublin, we might as well just donate the tree to the people of St Margaret’s!” This improved Niki’s mood enormously, not! Thankfully after only a slightly stressful journey we made it intact back to Glasnevin.

It was at this point that I took control, ferociously wrestling the tree off the roof-rack and carrying it slung over my shoulder into the house like a mountain buck! It was then that we discovered it wouldn’t fit into our Christmas tree stand, damn those wide trunked north Dublin trees! Out came the saw (probably for the first time in a decade) and we took turns to hack away at the very sap heavy bark. A good half an hour later we managed to just about wedge the tree into the base (although probably not far enough in to reach the water reservoir Niki had prepared for it, this remains a bone of contention). At this point we decided to take a break for lunch.

After we had our fill of luncheon meats and cheeses we returned to the fun part of the day, decorating the tree. As Niki was cutting through the netting to allow our tree to emerge from its man made chrysalis, Oscar (age 7) noticed that the inhabitants of the tree, mainly small flies but also a beetle and a ladybird or two, were now happily settling in to our living room, well mainly the ceiling. Our kids, being very definite city-types and not likely to be in a field unless it has goalposts at each end, are not big fans of creepy crawlies so this immediately sent them into fits of wailing and hair pulling (themselves and each other). It was then that Niki issued the immortal and highly exasperated line “I don’t care about the bugs on the ceiling!” She may have followed up with something along the lines of we are going to enjoy decorating this tree if it’s the last thing I ever do but I was too busy sitting and singing sweet melodies under my fake plastic Christmas tree to care!

Editor’s (Niki’s) note: we are very happy with our Christmas Tree and would recommend Wade’s Christmas Tree Farm!