There’s SNOW PLACE LIKE HOME!

Can’t wait for the flakes to fall? Just plug in these gizmos for a winter wonderland in your back yard – and even a family-sized snow globe...

SNOWFLAKES drift past my shoulders before landing on my boots. My children pelt snowballs at each other from behind Christmas trees as gifts twinkle enticingly by our feet. It looks as if we’ve been transported to Lapland. In fact, we’re in our garden.

Of course, the props — from the snowman I’ve hired to the Santa who has joined us — help create our Yuletide extravaganza. But the highlight of this festive scene is undoubtedly the snow swirling above our heads and turning the air wonderfully white.

We aren’t one of the lucky few towns to receive snow this week, however. In fact, the ‘snow’ isn’t really snow at all.

It is a replica substance that comes from a machine, creating a magical moment similar to one that captivated the Duchess of Cambridge last week, when she was pictured walking through a flurry of artificial snow while hosting a party at Kensington Palace. And it is easier and more affordable to reproduce at home than you might think.

Snow machines work by pumping a ‘snow fluid’ — a water-based substance similar to washing-up liquid — into a mesh fabric nozzle, from where it is propelled into the air by a motor, creating scores of tiny bubbles with an uncanny resemblance to snowflakes. Granted, the fake snow evaporates easily and doesn’t hold its shape. Sledging on it is tricky and building a snowman nigh on impossible.

But while the real deal never comes when you wish it would, a snow machine lets you conjure up an instant winter blizzard at the flick of a switch, and — unlike the real thing — can be done indoors.

Providing the perfect festive twist to parties, as well as ensuring the white Christmas your children long for is actually delivered this year, snow machine prices differ dramatically.

So do you get what you pay for? I enlisted the help of my snow-loving daughter Rosie, eight, and son Felix, six, to test seven models, ranging from £35 to £1,232. So let it snow, let it snow, let it snow . . .

CLIMB INTO A COOL BUBBLE

Christmas Giant Snow Globe, from £895 to hire for a day, sunshineevents.co.uk It Might be dark and distinctly chilly outside, but the children and I are cocooned from the December weather in a giant 10 ft high plastic blow-up bubble.

I have hired a snow globe for the afternoon, replete with snowman, Christmas tree, presents and plastic snow being blown gently into the air by fans in the globe’s base. In between them the three of us are like life-sized dolls in a giant replica of the hand-held toy that as a child I’d shake in wonder to set off a snow storm.

‘We all remember snow globes as children. they trigger romantic memories, which is why they appeal,’ says Richard Maughan of Sunshine Events, the Lancashirebased company that has loaned me their globe on a rare day it’s not booked out this month.

Business is, apparently, booming, with reasons for booking a snow globe — which costs from £895 to £1,500 to hire for a day — varying from Christmas proposals, to the family who wanted to treat their terminally-ill daughter to a white Christmas when she was too poorly to go to Lapland.

In an age of ever-competitive Instagram posts, popularity is further fuelled, undoubtedly, by the prospect of being able to put the experience on social media. ‘they are primarily a photo opportunity,’ Maughan admits.

It seems like a lot of effort for a picture, I think, as two men spend two hours constructing the globe in my garden. the PVC plastic sphere is placed on a metal base before being inflated with a fan and strengthened with a stainless steel pole. But while it may take a while to prepare, the end result is so luridly festive my children gasp in delight.

We climb the three steps at the back to enter through two doors of tightly zipped fabric that create an airlock which keeps the globe inflated and causes our ears to pop. Once inside, voices in the real world are muffled, adding to the mystical experience.

I feel slightly claustrophobic — the globe holds up to eight adults, but it’s cosy enough with just the three of us — and perplexed as to