@cinderellaslipper - you are right! It is Kyffin Williams, MIL has quite a few of his paintings. Also, she has great taste and sense of style, and is what I call 'a genuine lady'! I'm very lucky to have her as my MIL; plus, my husband has been raised by her, so he is just as great!! :)) If you want to see a bit more of her house, have a look at this: http://www.houzz.co.uk/projects/306977/monicas

Decorating the tree is always the beginning of something special in our house. Nothing eases the stresses and strains of planning like rummaging through the boxes looking for that special, favourite bauble. We all have our own and each of the children have theirs too. These 3 are my favourite; baby Jesus for our son James, white first Christmas bauble for our daughter Sophie and Rudolph for Mummy & Daddy. Merry Christmas everyone.

We've gone for one of each again this year. I'd echo the sentiments of the smell of the real tree being almost magical. The real tree is in the sitting room - and this is basically the wife's. She has full control over this bad-boy. She chooses the decorations, the lights, where things go, what colour scheme (for some reason the lights in this picture look blue. They're not, they're just a different 'white' - phone cameras hey). The fake tree is in the kids room (aka the conservatory) - this is decorated by the kids, and basically they just stand there and throw as much stuff as they can get their hands on in the direction of the tree and see what sticks. I did have to wait till they went to bed to 're-locate' some of the accessories, as 90% of is was only decorated up to waist level.

Why 'fallen angel'? heading was angel. For me it's a star - a star can symbolise an angel but an angel doesn't symbolise a star. As a kid I used to see people's trees with an angel stuck on the top and think 'charming, stuff an angel on the top of a sharp pine tree so the tip is up its...' well, don't need to say the rest. Suffice to say it didn't seem right as a kid.