Fi Phillips

It's December and, in  case you hadn't noticed, Christmas is speeding towards us. This weekend, my children helped me decorate our tree. The ornaments are a mixture of styles and colours but many hold wonderful memories.  Most of you will have a Christmas tree in your home this month. My December writing exercise is to choose one of your decorations as an inspiration for your writing. The inspiration could come from where you bought your decoration (or perhaps it was a gift), or what the symbol of the ornament stands for itself (be it, an owl, a Santa or a snowflake).  If you don't have a Christmas tree at home (or if you aren't at home this time of year), then choose an ornament on a tree in a shopping centre, or find one online.  Which bauble have you chosen or what has it inspired you to write?

My parents had what I see as a traditional marriage. My father was in charge of the money. My mother was in charge of the house, and me. She was one of those people who tended to just put her head down and get on with things.Of course she had a good moan about all the work she had to do, from time to time, but for the most part she was very good at looking after us both. My father and I always had clean clothes and food on the table. Everything we needed from packed lunches to polished shoes to appointments made was provided for us. One task she did hand over though was decorating the Christmas tree. When I was a very small child we had a green tinsel tree. That's the best way I can describe it. It's branches were adorned with what seemed to be green shredded paper. It always looked rather threadbare when we removed it from its box. The magic came when we added tinsel and baubles. I don't know where the baubles came from, whether they had belonged to my grandparents o...