The house journal
What to know before buying: how much light a tree takes, what survives a winter outdoors, and what goes into a fill-your-own calendar.
Fill-Your-Own Advent Calendar: Twenty-Four Ideas That Are Not Chocolate
A pocket calendar arrives empty, that is the point. What remains is finding twenty-four small flat light things that do not cost the price of a present.
Four O'Clock on Christmas Day — Keeping Children Busy Once Everything Is Open
The presents are unwrapped, there are four hours until dinner, and the new toys have already been tried. It is the moment nobody plans for.
Setting a Christmas Table in Ten Minutes, With the Oven On
The table goes up last, thirty minutes before everyone arrives, with the cooking still running. Three things are enough — and none of them needs ironing.
Decorating a House Front Without Running an Extension Lead
A front door almost never has a socket beside it. Solar and battery solve that — as long as you know what they actually deliver in December.
Decorating a Tree Without Overloading It — The Numbers That Work
About twenty baubles for a 1.5 m tree, thirty for 1.8 m. Beyond that it stops being a decorated tree and becomes a covered one — and the stand still shows.
How Much String Light for a Christmas Tree — The Three-Line Answer
Three metres of lights per metre of height for a dense result, two for a plain tree. The rest depends on one thing only: where the power comes from.