Day 155

It's a tradition in my family to put the Christmas decorations on the first Sunday of December. Every year, come rain or shine. Or snow. Just kidding, it never snows.

Ever.

So that made two days ago the nominated day for decorations - namely the Christmas tree. What caught my attention was not the sparkly tinsel, the baubles or the as-ever-non-existant fairy, but looking inside the tree. Inside our artificial Christmas tree is like a new world - there are metal bars everywhere (I swear, it doesn't even try to be realistic) all arranged in different levels.

You may not know that I played with my Barbies up until an embarrassingly late age. Up to the age of eleven, twelve even, I constructed houses and lived increasingly elaborate plotlines with my old Barbies, until finally I realised that computer games were a far more effective way to spend my time.

Through the childlike eyes of imagination, every year the huge Christmas tree seemed like a castle, with its many floors and pretty style of interior decoration. It was a little spangly, to be sure, but who was I to complain? A fortress was a fortress.

So every year about ten Barbies became the extra decorations, posed near the top (sunbathing) or balanced carefully on the bars (cooking). My parents, parhaps a little embarrassed or alarmed at me playing with childrens' toys whilst taking my GCSEs, never mentioned them. They were unspoken, unacknowledged, but always there. The elephants in the, er, Christmas tree.

I'm a little relieved to say that I haven't played with my Barbies for at least three years. But I'm tempted to put them back in the Christmas tree, y'know, just for old times's sake.

Merry Christmas if I don't remember to blog before then!