No longer have to go shopping with four children but I hear your pain LDL! My mum always babysat for me & now they are adults it is just token fun gifts as mostly they need $$$. I like markets for unusual gifts & if visiting country antique or craft stores through the year I might put some items away. My side of the family do hamper gifts each year which is home made fudge, pickles, jams, sauces, preserved lemons, dukkah or whatever they like to make in bulk. We take one of each item & end up with a hamper of goodies, it's great! My hubby's family put in together to sponsor a well or goat etc through World Vision which is also great! NO stress!

My dear departed mother was never much of a drinker but every Christmas morning the two of us would have some form of champagne cocktail. Often a Mimosa, which went down a treat. BUT the year we tried a champagne and strawberry liqueur mix was a disaster. Well not for mum and I, we giggled through until mid afternoon when crashed for a nap. When we woke we realised the peas went unserved, some people had the wrong presents and there was something very charred in the oven. The family still talks about the year we were too tipsy to cook lunch. This year it'll be straight champagne (and after 8 years I still miss her dreadfully).

I don't have room in my current home for any sort of tree, not even a hat stand like pictured, so I can't wait till our new home is complete and I can put up a tree but I think the stand and the gifts looks perfectly acceptable and does still have the important Xmas spirit!! Well done Maria

Over the years I have improvised Christmas trees depending on our circumstances. When we were living in the middle of renovations a surveyor's tripod became a quite respectable tree. Later, in a small apartment, a few evergreen twigs hung on the wall in the form of a tree worked fine. The next year we had an ornamental bamboo in that same spot so that became the tree.