On Sunday I finally finished decorating my house for Christmas. I put up the tree on 20 November and it always takes me a week just to put up the lights. There are close to two thousand lights on my tree, which when lit lights up my entire ground floor. I do not need to turn on any lights, either in the living room or the kitchen, when the tree is plugged in. I affectionately call the Christmas tree the “budgies’ Christmas playhouse” since they have been known to perch in the tree when it is not lit. I have mostly Christmas balls and bird decorations on my tree this year. I believe the bird decorations attract the budgies to the tree since the sole photograph I have of one of my birds, Grey, perched in the tree is a shot of him next to a green bird ornament. The first shot was taken with the living room lights off:

Even the birds’ house gets decorated:

and a close-up of my little babies illuminated only by Christmas tree lights:

My favourite movie of all time is “White Christmas” and every year I set up a display of movie paraphernalia. I decided this year not to set out everything I own associated with the movie:

My nephew Werner died two years ago and I have a special table set up for him. The photo on the left however is of my brother Grant and me on Christmas day 1970:

I decorated my railings from the basement to the second floor with pine garland, LED lights, and oversize translucent old-fashioned Christmas lightbulbs, strung together with silver cord:

It’s always such a great pleasure to decorate my house for Christmas. Now that it’s all done, I’m going to invite people over. You don’t even need an invitation, just call or E me and tell me you want to come. Come for Scrabble, come for chitchat, come and watch “White Christmas” with me!