I have winners! (And another Christmas Cracker...)

So we finally got the Christmas tree into the house on Friday evening and all of us girlies waited around interminably while He manhandled it into place and performed some drastic tree surgery to make it fit into our very low ceilinged sitting room. (When Christmas tree buying time comes around I always slip into a state of blissful optimism and temporarily delude myself that we live in a house called The Old Rectory.) The good new is we'll have plenty of pine logs to last us through the festive period. The bad news is the Christmas tree now looks like the victim of a savage attack by a homicidal maniac, and there's only so much damage you can conceal with baubles and tinsel.

Further bad news was to follow, involving fairy lights. I won't go into details, but suffice it to say that once we'd found candles and torches, located the fuse box, got the lights back on in the house and re-started the computer it seemed like a good idea to open a bottle of calming fizz, all of which is all a long, complicated and improbable excuse for why I didn't draw competition winners on Friday night as promised. However, I did get the daughters to do it yesterday, putting the names into daughter #1's Christmas stocking which had been newly unearthed from the Christmas box along with all the decorations. The first name picked out was Brigitte, who wins the necklace I want to keep for myself and a signed copy of Taken for Revenge, Bedded for Pleasure. Katie S and Karen were picked out next, so I'll be sending books to them too.

Today I'm going to be braving the supermarket for the first time in ages, having discovered yesterday that all the online shopping delivery slots were booked up. This is a shock to the system, because it involves getting dressed properly (ie in something other than pyjama trousers and my favourite grey polo necked jumper, stolen from Him circa 1998...) and probably even putting on mascara. Actually, this perfectly encapsulates my whole Christmas holiday clothes dilemma: I secretly feel that over Christmas I should be wearing posh clothes-- perferably grown-up dresses teamed with high heels and sparkly jewellery, but what tends to happen here is that once we return from church on Christmas eve we don't actually leave the house again for days and I never seem to get very far from the pyjama and favourite jumper look. It's all a far cry from the M&S advert fantasy (which even features formal evening wear. Saints preserve us!)

Anyway, here's another Christmas cracker. I love this clip, but why in the name of mince pies does she take so long to get down the stairs and kiss him??? This is Colin Firth for pity's sake. I'd have thrown myself over the railing.