My Christmas  tree is  glitzy with decorations, standing on an ornate indian mirrored chest. It is sparkling with  precious baubles saved from my childhood. The branches are hung with   little felt sequinned shoes  made by my children at playgroup  over 20 years ago ,  tiny wooden toys  bought from a German Christmas  market , miniature knitted stockings,  patchwork stars, dangly glass heart shapes from a broken chandelier; all kinds of diverse treasures   carefully unwrapped and remembered each year.  Nothing matches and there is no colour scheme or theme! The crowning glory at the top of the tree is ‘grubby fairy’ ,named by my husband as until this year she was still wearing the gauzy dress I made for her when I was 12 and looking slightly worse for wear. I  decided this was a disrespectful title for a fairly elderly doll and  decided to treat  her to a new dress made from some pieces of victorian lace and rechristened her ‘lacy fairy’!  The lace was rather reluctantly  donated to the Christmas cause  as it had been set aside for  a yet to be planned collage.   So now you know my guilty secret- I still play with my toys!

Well ,I guess  the  arty moral of this sentimental tale is to keep in touch with our playful childish thoughts  and dreams. If  we let our inner child shine  through all those barriers we build around ourselves it is more likely that  our true,authentic and unique  artist voices will   shine through in our paintings.

And now I must go and put  a mincepie out for Rudolph…. or is it Santa who gets the pie?  Either way…. have a  wonderful Christmas and may all your dreams come true! X