The Christmas Tree Debate

This time next month we will be sitting around with friends and family, opening presents, stuffing ourselves with turkey and waiting for the Downton Abbey Christmas special to begin and I for one can't wait as this year my family will be joining my sister-in-law's for one big old celebration.

That said I'm probably feeling the least festive I have in some time. There's no drama, rhyme or reason and I have a diary packed full of various celebrations over the next month which I'm looking forward to and that is part of the reason that last week I made an announcement to friends and family that has left my brother livid and blog readers feel free to judge me accordingly. This Christmas I have decided not to put my Christmas tree up - insert shocked emoji!

Usually I would be putting my tree up for 1st December but that is thwarted this year by the arrival of my new fridge freezer and currently my kitchen contents are laid across my flat whilst I take advantage of some space to repaint the kitchen before it arrives.

The following few weeks as I mentioned will be filled with celebrations, drinks, blogging and trying to fit in the time just seems like a big pressure when I will spend much of my time outside of my flat and unable to take full advantage. Not to mention my tree is a mammoth beast and my decorations have been collected over the years and it takes almost as long to remove them from packaging as it does to place on the tree and as soon as Boxing Day is over with I like to get the tree down and there's nothing I hate more than packing it all away, fighting to fit the dismantled tree into it's box and the feeling that my home looks bare without the twinkling fairy lights.

My brother as I mentioned is not happy with this explanation and as such he is addressing me only as 'No Tree' and I'm receiving photos like the one in this post of simple pop up trees with cute adorable nephews to tug at my heart strings. You see usually I invite my niece and nephew to help me decorated the trees as you can see in posts from 2012 and 2011. Of course looking through those posts makes me feel nostalgic but sometimes you have to take a year off.

Of course I'm not a complete Scrooge and I will be digging out my collection of Christmas mugs, decorating my table with a poinsettia and a few other decorations that I have but this year the tree feels a little too much.

So what do you think, should I make the effort and put a tree up or is it fair to have a year off?