Considering it was ‘entirely up to me’ he should have stopped pushing when I said I didn’t want to do it.

‘We’re supposed to be making this Christmas a good one, remember?’ he added.

As unwilling as I was to accept it, he did have a point. I had previously said that I’d make this Christmas memorable and as it was the last December the first I was going to be spending at Wynter’s Trees, I supposed I should make the effort to make it count.

‘All right,’ I said, taking back the plate. ‘We’ll do it. Though I’ll eat this first and then we’ll get the boxes out of the loft.’

‘You don’t have to worry about that,’ he said, looking like the cat who’d got the cream as he pinned our calendars side by side on the kitchen pinboard. ‘I got the boxes out last night. They’re in the utility room.’

The wave of nostalgia and plethora of memories which hit me as we unpacked the boxes was almost overwhelming. I hadn’t spent a Christmas at Wynter’s Trees in a very long time, and the boxes hadn’t been touched since someone, David I guessed, and perhaps Sue, had packed them away after Dad’s funeral.

I hadn’t stayed long enough to do anything that day. I hadn’t even come back to the lodge after the service. I had arrived at the church just a few minutes before the hearse and left swiftly after the formalities at the graveside. However, even though some of the memories associated with the decorations Ned and I carefully unpacked were painful, unwrapping the treasures felt like meeting old and long forgotten friends too.

‘Did you make this?’ he grinned, holding up a rather battered angel.

Fashioned from a loo roll tube, pipe cleaners, glitter, and paper doilies, my reception class effort looked a little rough around the edges, but at well over two decades old, that was hardly surprising.

‘I did,’ I proudly said.

‘Wow,’ said Ned, reverently setting her, or him, I couldn’t remember, to one side. ‘Your artistic talents shone through from an early age, didn’t they?’

‘Ever so,’ I laughed. ‘Anyway,’ I added, ‘you’re not supposed to be looking through those boxes. They’re all for the tree. These are the ones we want.’

We pushed the tree decoration cartons aside and dived into the others. There was plenty to choose from and Ned reminded me that the lights for the veranda along with the deer family figures I had talked Dad into buying in lieu of real, live reindeer, were all stored in the barn.

‘Can we sort those on Monday when we’re closed?’ I asked. ‘If visitors see things being set up, it sort of takes away some of the magic, doesn’t it?’

‘Spoken like a true Wynter,’ Ned laughed.