Olivia and I made our gingerbread house this afternoon while the snow was flying thickly outside. It's a bit of a bodge job and if it were raining, I think the roof would leak... While we played with walls and icing, we listened to our 'Sing Mit' (singalong) cd of German Christmas carols sung by children. We have had this cd a long time and the carols are much loved, so singing along reminds us of all our past Christmases and good memories. Including this one: we used to live in a house with very high ceilings and each year we would have a very tall Christmas tree. One year, the tree we chose turned out to be a bit wonky but we supported it as best we could in its stand. We then listened to 'Sing Mit' and decorated the tree and it looked beautiful. I went to get some drinks and suddenly heard a series of tinkling, swishing sounds. Olivia had been fascinated with one particular ornament and had reached out to touch it - I think she was about four years old - and that was all it needed for the tree to fall. There was no big crash because what I had heard was all the ornaments and baubles as they hit the floor with the tips of the branches. I remember screaming because I thought that Olivia had been squashed under the tree but no, she had escaped but was a bit scared... Well, instead of sitting down together and watching 'Muppet Christmas Carol' (another tradition), I had to shut the girls and the cat out of the living room while we removed the remains of the broken ornaments and Stuart lifted the tree. I then swept up all the tiny shards of glass and hoovered, twice! Luckily, a lot of the glass things remained intact as they had been on the other side of the tree and we also had a lot that were not glass but it took a while before the tree was cut again at the bottom to balance it a bit better. Once stable, the tree was left until the next day - nobody felt like decorating that evening. It's one of those stories that every family has and one of the joys of Christmas is digging them out again and having a laugh. I'm intending to have lots of laughs with both daughters over the next few days. Merry Christmas, everyone!
