Yours

December 23rd

Dear Sophia,

I love you.

I had a good day today. I got lots done. I woke up this morning feeling like I should carry my excitement about our Christmases right through the next few days. I realised the reason it felt like such a drop off when I got home yesterday was I hadn’t even thought about Christmas at all when I was at home. I hadn’t even got a tree up or anything like that.

Some people go crazy over the top with decorations all over their house so you can hardly move for them. That’s too much for anyone but I think a tree can be quite a nice thing. I suppose it’ll be important when we have kids too. We’ll have to put their presents under it and pretend to let them help with decorating it.

I knew the old tree was still up in the loft somewhere. When I came home from university at Christmas my mum would have it up ready. It was the same one we’ve had since I was a kid. I’ve never had to put it up myself though.

It wasn’t too much effort. It’s just a plastic one obviously. I don’t know why people bother with real trees. I bet they cost a fortune and they just make a mess. Having the same tree every year seems more like a tradition anyway.

I went and got the stepladder out of the garage. I worked out how to get up into the loft. I don’t think I’d ever been up there before. When I was a kid and my dad went up there I’d always sit at the bottom of the ladder and think it looked really scary up there.

It wasn’t scary. I got up the ladder and looked around. It was pretty empty. There was an old mattress up there somehow. It was propped up against some cardboard boxes. I’m not sure why they didn’t throw it out instead.

I didn’t even have to climb up into the loft properly. The tree was in a cardboard box just to the side of the hatch bit. I reached for it and slid it towards me and climbed down the ladder with it. I guess it was the only thing my mum ever got out of the loft so she left it where it was easy to reach.

I remember once when I was really little my dad yelled at my mum for ages because he said she’d hidden half the Christmas decorations from him. She said she’d just put them in a couple of boxes up the loft but he went up there and said they weren’t there. I don’t know what was missing but he was really angry about it. Maybe that’s what was in those other boxes still up there. I don’t know really. I’m not going to bother checking until we need to clear out the loft for our stuff. I’d rather not think about it.

I put up the tree myself. It didn’t take long. There was some tinsel at the bottom of the box and it looked a bit stringy tangled up. I wrapped it around the tree. There was red tinsel and gold tinsel. It didn’t look too bad in the end. I put it in the corner of the living room. I think it looks quite good there. It actually brightens up the living room a bit even though it’s not got any lights on. I think for next year we should buy a load of our own decorations for the tree.

I know I’m probably a bit late but I don’t know when you’re meant to put up your tree anyway. The start of December would seem far too early. Having a tree up for a twelfth of the year seems crazy. I’m happy with it being up now.

Next year we can start working out our own traditions anyway. We can have Christmas our way. Just us.

I love you.

Yours,

Andrew