Seachain an duine a bhíonn ina thost

Christmas Rule No. 1 Chez Goggin is quite simple, and goes a little something like this:

Thou shalt not decorate the Christmas tree until the offspring return home.

The senior members of the household are very good at obeying this rule, and don't even buy the tree until we get home.

This is how we got hit by the Great Christmas Tree Shortage of 2006.

Apparently it's a nationwide shortage. Too many Christmas trees are being exported, and there's a general feeling that we're all too posh to just nick trees from the forests and sell them these days. Damn Celtic Tiger economy. We may have sourced one in Nenagh (approximately twenty miles away) and perhaps even one in Newport but it seems a little like buying things on the black market, all knowing someone who knows someone who might have one.

And I Will Not tolerate a fake tree in my house.