How not to decorate a Christmas tree

If you need to move furniture around, then you should wait until all possible children are home and in the room. In fact, it would probably be advisable to arrange a couple of playdates, so that you really have maximum numbers of helpers. This works particularly well when moving the furniture will expose toys, mementos and dead spiders who have not been seen since, well, probably last Christmas. That way, when you’re cleaning out the space for the tree, you can have small children running between your legs and tripping over bits of Lego. It’s also particularly helpful if you try to move as much furniture as you can all by yourself. You never know, this might help you find a way to A&E in the run-up to Christmas.

If the children somehow manage to escape the lure of sparkly tinsel and baubles for the lure of the television, giving you far too much time to actualy clear the space and put the tree up, do make certain that you call them back before you put the lights up. Especially if you are likely to have any dead bulbs that need replacing. Because impatient children are really essential to the whole process.

If you’ve bought new decorations, do make sure they’re all still in their box, preferably secured to each other or the box by means of impenetrable wires. It’s a strong bonus if you have bought decorations that include some shaped like teeny tiny presents, because then you can have the fun of watching one child open one out of curiosity, while the rest copy the leader. You can then be sure to throw in that most Christmassy of Christmas traditions, threatening to send a small child to bed for opening a present too early – and you don’t even have to damage a real present in the process. Perfect.

Any old decorations should, of course, be as tangled up as possible, requiring hedge trimmers and Vaseline to extricate them and work out which two can actually be reused this year. By this point, you will probably have lost your child helpers and may well be left to finish clearing up the various messes all by yourself. If so, large doses of alcohol should be administered in order to mimic the effects of small children.