Being Danish, but having lived in the UK for many many years, and now living and running a small B&B in beautiful Provence, France - we have always celebrated the 24th December Danish style and the 25th English style, so getting the best of both worlds! On The 1st of December our house will be ready and decorated in many delicate, often handmade, bought or made by me, decorations. Flickering candles everywhere. On the first Sunday in December, ie the 2nd Sunday in advent, in the afternoon...until often late, our house would be full of friends and family, young and old, for our traditional Danish Gløgg Party, where everybody brings a little red Wine (for har gløgg) and a little something yo eat. We would make lots if gløgg and lots og æbleskiver, the twi bring served in private or in public places all over Denmark from the 1st of December! The tree itself will always be a real one, you will never ever find an artificial in any colour in our house! We get the fresh tree inside normally on the 22nd December, and it is decorated firstly by putting the brass George Jensen star on the top (always a star never an Angel), then the strings of warm white electric lights are spread around the tree. Then the serious decorating of the tree takes place, often accompanied by us eating some of the Danish Christmas nibbles I have made and drinking some Gløgg. The tree dekorations are all in gold, white, red and green. It takes quite some time to decorate, and finsly we hang the candle holders safely and not below any decorations, as c60 live candles are lit on Christmas Eve after our traditional Danish Christmas dinner and as we sit down around the beautiful tree and just before we open most of our presents. We open the rest of our presents just a few, sometime in the morning on the 25th either before or after a very nice brunch! The live candles are all safe as the tree is fresh, and because of the design of the Danish candle tree holders, and it us soooo beautiful, and we would absolutely have it any other way! On the 6th January sadly like all good things, the decorations cone down...and Christmas is another c 11 months away, and we'll do it all over again! Hope you all have a blessed, nice and quiet Christmas, and how lucky those if us are, who can say just that, and for us this will be our first proper Christmas in la belle Provence, and our Gløgg Party has moved to just before Christmas for varietes reasons! ;)

I never understood why people don't build their conservatory for year round use. It's all about light and heat control. Automatic sun reflective shades along the roof windows will keep the room from overheating in the summer and even help keep it warm in the winter. Proper wall and ceiling insulation, double or gas permeated triple glazing will keep it comfortable year around with the right heating. Add a wee wood stove in a corner with a simply pipe chimney and you have yourself a lovely winter sun room to brighten your cold winter days. If you live where there is snow, even better. It'll feel like a wee slice of paradise.

great cgi quality

I have to say that looking very very closely at the photo (shame it's fairly low res) there are certain details there that are unlikely to be done on a computer, unless the person doing it was extremely OCD'd. I mean the rainwater pipe, marks on the concrete and dirt on the wall where it meets the lawn, but then the glazing is way too blue and see through to the other side. I'm going to stick with CGI. Come on Isidora Markovic tell us already!;)