Jonny McCambridge: The most wonderful time of the year ... after a tree-related false start

It usually begins for me when I hear the first carol of the season played on Classic FM in early December. That occasion always brings a little twist to my stomach, the stirring of an indefinable mixture of feelings. The sense that something better is coming.

I am a reluctant shopper, but I endure it because I love the shared ritual of giving and receiving gifts. I don’t care what I get, any present will make me happy. I am entirely content that every year I receive several bottles of aftershave even though I have a full beard.

There is the buzz and anticipation of Christmas Eve night when my son will wedge himself between his mummy and I on the sofa and we will watch the ‘Muppet Christmas Carol’ before leaving mince pies beside the chimney and going upstairs.

Not that many hours later we will be walking back down in the dark to see if Santa has come. To me, this early morning bare-footed walk, with my young son’s small hand trembling inside my own, is the essence of the feeling of Christmas.

Then there is the Christmas tree. We usually play festive songs as we decorate it as a family, my boy happily handing the baubles to my wife, as I untangle the messy rows of lights and tell myself, as I do every year, to be more careful in the future about storing them away in the attic.

Until now, we have always had an artificial fir. This year will be different because we have decided we will have a real tree in the front room as the centrepiece of our decorations.

We decide to turn the purchase into a new festive treat. We will go for lunch together, before visiting the Christmas tree farm, selecting the biggest specimen we can find, and then return home to decorate it together while the music plays.

There is a lot of excited chatter in the car as we drive towards the farm. My son laughs at my hopeless inability to navigate the unfamiliar route.

It is only when I park the car and see the array of tall and imposing evergreen trees in the yard that I have the first sense of a developing complication. I drive a small car. These are very large trees. In addition, there are three of us to transport. As I stare at one particularly high tree, I wonder why this problem hadn’t occurred to me before. It is reality interfering with my naïve expectation of the way things ought to be.

I have a memory of an old episode of Peppa Pig where they faced a similar dilemma. In the cartoon Daddy Pig ends up carrying the giant tree all the way home on his back.

But we are several miles from our house. There is no way I could reasonably expect my wife to carry the tree all that distance.

My son is running from tree to tree. My wife looks at me.

‘What’s wrong? You’ve gone very quiet.’

‘I’m just worrying about how we’re going to fit it into the car. Maybe we should go for a small one.’

But my son has other ideas and has selected a tree which would not look out of place at the front of the city hall. I struggle to lift it and have a sense of impending doom as I drag it towards the barn which serves as a checkout.

The tree is netted (which I presume is the point at which it is too late to back out). A woman behind a counter smiles at me and tells me that will be £60.

‘Sixty pounds? I just want to buy the tree, not the whole forest,’ I gasp in reply, trying not to sound too much like a tight north Antrim man doing an impression of Jimmy Young doing an impression of a tight north Antrim man.

The woman is no longer smiling.

‘The price is £60.’

I grumble as I fish out my bank card.

‘I’m sorry, but we don’t accept cards. It’s cash only.’

This is a particular annoyance. Only recently did I cease carrying cash because I have no cause to use it anymore. I stopped after I noticed that a £20 note had been in my wallet for so long that it changed colour. Now, when I need physical cash, there is none. Cruel irony has kicked me where it hurts.

We leave the Christmas tree farm with me muttering something about coming back later. For several miles we drive in silence, there is no more excited chatter.

After a while I ask my son if he is ok. He bursts into tears.

‘Why didn’t you bring cash daddy? Why didn’t you bring cash?’

He continues to blubber beside me. I ask my wife in the back if she is ok.

‘You ruined it by being all grumpy about the size of the tree, it was supposed to be a fun thing for us.’

At this point I crack.

‘WE ARE HAVING FUN!! THIS IS FUN!! WHAT COULD BE MORE FUN THAN THIS??!!’

We reach our house. My wife goes upstairs on her own. My son goes to his room on his own. I am left on my own. I decide to go back out to the car and work out how to put the back seat down to enlarge the boot area.

I drive to the bank machine and withdraw some cash. Then I drive back to the farm and pick up our Christmas tree.

I arrive home and announce that I have got the tree. Nobody comes. I take it into the living room and begin stabilising it. I tell Alexa to play some Christmas music. The first song which comes on is ‘Lonely This Christmas’ by Mud. I struggle to get the tree to stay straight.

‘It will be lonely this Christmas without you to hold, it will be lonely this Christmas, lonely and cold.’

Finally, the tree is upright, and I cut off the net and begin to search through dusty boxes of decorations. Alexa begins to play another song.

‘So, this is Christmas, and what have you done?’

After a while my son pops his head into the room.

‘Here buddy, look at the amazing tree you picked out. Do you want to help me decorate it?’

A few minutes later my wife comes in and takes over, because she knows I’ll make a complete hash of it. Soon, the three of us are joking and laughing once again, complimenting each other on the appearance of our tree. Alexa plays another song.

‘It’s the most wonderful time of the year…’