Four trees... one as tall as the house
Nicola Pastor, 39, is a full-time mum and lives in Wigan with husband Marc, 47, an investor, and their children ruby, 13, Emmie, 11, and louie, three. she says: OUR house has been shimmering with Christmas sparkle, inside and out, since the last week in November. Visitors frequently comment on how magical — and classy — the decorations are.
But I can’t claim any credit because hiring professionals to decorate our six-bedroom home is as much a festive tradition as leaving mince pies out for Santa.
until five years ago I’d have been scrabbling around in the attic like most people.
A chance conversation with another mum in 2014 changed that. I was explaining we’d recently moved house and had got rid of all our Christmas decorations.
She revealed that she worked for a firm called The Christmas Decorators, so a few days later I booked an appointment.
The kitchen we’d inherited was bright pink (it’s long gone now!) so we embraced a tree with a cerise colour theme. A second tree in the living room was decorated in black and white, and a third in the dining room was bedecked with gorgeous bronze and copper baubles.
Each year, we discuss colours and come up with a different theme.
This year, two ladies spent four hours trimming two 7ft artificial trees, one in bronze, gold and copper, the other in champagne, gold and silver.
My three-year- old son, Louie, pesters me constantly to take his picture next to the life- size Nutcracker in the dining room.
He and his sisters had a lot of fun decorating an artificial tree in the orangerie to ensure they didn’t miss out.
outside we have a real fir tree that we planted when we moved in and is now the height of the house, which two men festooned with thousands of fairy lights, as well as attaching lights and garlands across the width of our home.
I know it sounds decadent and indulgent and that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.
But we work hard and love hosting friends and family over Christmas, so I want the decorations to look gorgeous and put everyone in a festive mood.