Yesterday was the 109th Toronto Santa Claus Parade which marks my official start to the Christmas season. On the Saturday before the parade I set up my Christmas tree and I always have my mother over to help. This year my themes are red and birds. Red is a common colour at Christmas but I have never gone so far as having a tree decked out only in red lights and decorations. Last year I sorted all of my bird decorations and I will be adding them to the tree as well, so stay tuned for the red bird tree in the next couple weeks. In the meantime, here a few pictures from Saturday as my mother, my budgies and I started to get the living room in festive order:

The big tree is going up this year, displacing the birdcage for the next seven weeks. I have boxes of new red lights which will all go up, as a Christmas tree can never have too few lights in the Rowland household.

My mother posing with all the red lights that will go on the tree.

I may put thousands of lights on my tree, but the most time-consuming part of the job is hiding the cords. I am under the tree waist-deep wrapping the extension cord around the trunk and weaving it through the lowest tier of branches, creating a cord spiderweb.

Kakapo, Kelly and Grey watch as I assemble their Christmas playhouse, otherwise known as the Christmas tree.