nevertheless good old douglas fir eh

However I do enjoy getting Douglas Fir down from the top of the cupboard in the music room. He is a sound-sensitive talking Christmas tree who sings a couple of songs. One is 'Jingle Bells' and the other is one of his own invention which is particularly great because he garbles the bits he couldn't be bothered thinking up and just cuts to the chase, so it's something like 'Ba ba dada da, christmas joy, ba ba dada da Santa joy, ba ba dada da give me stuff, ba ba dada da not enough', in a kind of Pee Wee Herman voice. Love it. The downside of Douglas is he is sound-sensitive so he's likely to go off at any time, and so you often want to turn him off, but coming towards him to turn him off sets him off again, and you have to wait until he's got through another 'ba ba dada da'. You don't want to turn him off in the middle as his eyes and mouth are open and it might look like he's been shot or something. When he sings his eyes light up green which looks excellent particularly in the dark. Charlie was amazed the first couple of times but now she just regards DF like everything else, with weary disgust.