We’ve had several memorable Christmas trees growing up.

The earliest one I could remember - and I could be wrong because my memory is so bad- was a shrub in a pot and there were Christmas balls hung on the stems.

Then my mother went through her crafty phase. She had the idea of filling a chicken coop/fencing wire thingy shaped into a cone, with shiny green cellophane cut and pinched to resemble ‘leaves’. The cone ended up being so big that for some reason, we only filled the part that was visible; a trick I still use to this day, because why waste ornaments on a side nobody sees??

Then we had the infamous soap-sud tree! We used the branches of this tree that grows beside the river called pakar. We wanted something that came out of a winter’s day when the whole world was covered in snow. To achieve the snow-effect, we dissolved packets of laundry powder detergent in as little water as possible, and whipped it up to create dense suds that resembled meringue.

These were draped onto the branches to create the illusion of fallen snow. I can’t remember now how it lasted, but as we grew older and conventional, store-bought trees came to the shops, you realise how more fun it was to create something out of nothing with your family.

Unfortunately, while I’m creative at other things, crafty DIY stuff seems to be impervious to my enthusiastic attempts. So I’ve given up and have resigned to the fact that when it comes to Christmas trees, the safest route for me was to do a conventional one with conventional materials.

This year, we’ve decided on a gold and white theme and New Zealand being the small country that it is, didn’t have what I was looking for but thank God fo Amazon.