so, yesterday morning, the girls and i went to cut down a tree at the local tree chopping place. it was twice as expensive to chop a tree down than to chop your own, but it's a tradition now so we have to go through with it

unfortunately the stock of trees seems to be reducing each year so it took us quite a while to find one we wanted.  we also did more checking for dead branches after last year's 'dead stick' look.

here's kezia at work with the saw

eventually the beast was felled

and then it was back home to get it decorated before it had realised it had even been dug up.

and this year, just to prove we're especially holy, we've got three angels (that's a triangle)