The Little Christmas Tree

This is a shot taken this morning of Our Street with my car with it's roof rack fitted for our traditional family dash to Delamere Forest to buy a real Christmas Tree. Another lovely family day is in prospect putting up the decorations, even if our darling little baby J is now nearly 21.

In silhouette this is the Christmas tree grown from the seedling given as a present to J by Father Christmas at his Grotto at Delamere in 1997. We eventually planted it over the grave of J's tiny Chinese Hamster called Molly. Around 15 years later, the tree is now about 6 feet high.

It is very sad to think how 20 Sandy Hook school children could have been amongst the 26 killed in the Newtown shootings last week in Conneticutt. Some would have been about the same age as little innocent J was back in 1997. Just cannot understand who would ever want to harm a child, let alone plan to shoot them deliberately. Our heart goes out to them all, their families, friends and all the Newtown community this Christmas.

Postscript: This Christmas we will be recycling our house tree again through the East Cheshire Hospice Christmas Tree Collection. Last year it raised over £60,200 to help meet the £6,000 per day running costs of this wonderful hospice. Over 4,500 collections were made with over 100 helpers recycling 44 Tonnes of Christmas Trees. Over £342,000 has been donated so far, since 2001.