Me (age 5 in my Santa jammies), Christmas morning, Kemptville, Ontario. I noticed the paper cut-out Nativity scene under the tree which I am about to take out with my new pram.

I still remember the tree. It was so wide the boy (one of the students from the high school where my mother taught) who brought it into the house could barely get it in the door. It was also suffering from a tree blight which had affected all the trees in the area. My mother started a trend in the village that year when she painted the brown tips of the branches with silver spray-paint. View full size.