Mum shares incredible hack to decorate her Christmas tree in minutes
If you haven't done your Christmas tree by now you'd probably best get a move on as it's less than two weeks until the big day.
Christmas feels like it's coming round incredibly quickly this year so to maximise time with the decorations, some pretty swift action will need to be taken.
Luckily, one clever mum has worked out a genius hack to save bags of time when it comes to decorating the tree.
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While plenty of people like savouring the moment to decorate the tree, if you've made it this far into December without putting up a tree you might just want to set it up as quickly as you can.
With that in mind, this brilliant hack to get the decorating done perfectly in just a few minutes is to do it right the first time, then preserve the tree by wrapping it in cling film until you need it again.
Gillian Cowie used to spent up to two hours decorating the tree, making sure every lightbulb and bauble was placed to perfection, but about a decade ago, the 39-year-old came up with an ingenious solution.
Admitting to being 'quite a perfectionist', Gillian said she 'absolutely wouldn't go back' to her old method of decorating the Christmas tree.
She said: "I must have been doing this for around ten years. I think someone mentioned it to me that it was something that they did and I thought 'I'm going to try it' and I have, it's dead easy.
"I just wrap it up at the end of December or whatever and it goes down in the garage until the following year. Everybody loves it - they keep saying 'I'm going to do it this year' if I put a picture on Facebook.
"My son always helps me wrap and unwrap it. I think when people first see it, they think it's a bit crazy but when they see me taking it off they're like 'right, ok' because it doesn't get crushed or anything, I've never broken any baubles."
People hailed the hack as a stroke of 'absolute genius' and 'the best idea I have ever actually seen', while others wished they had enough storage room to do it themselves.
This year, you could have put the tree up back on 27 November, as that's when Advent begins and the traditional period where it's acceptable to put up the tree opens up.
If you want to save money on decorations then there's another clever hack to save a bit of cash this Christmas, and that's to swap out your baubles for decorated balloons which are much cheaper to buy while still being very shiny.
Meanwhile, if there's one place you don't want to plonk your tree it's right next to a radiator, as according to experts that'll mean it dries out and starts shedding needles quickly, leaving you with a spiky floor and a barren tree.
Joe Harker