Happy Christmas in July! According to a friend, celebrating Christmas on the 25th of July is an American thing; I’ve never verified whether or not that’s the case, but it’s a fun celebration, which I actually prefer as July is far better than miserable, dreary December, here in Northern Ireland. So, come on fellow festive revellers on this side of the Atlantic…why not have some seasonal summer fun?

A Yule tree for Christmas?

Shopping for the perfect Yule tree

In December, I bought a potted tree for Yule. Nothing wrong with our usual plastic one, of course, but I’ve become rather green-fingered over the last five years or so, and thought a real miniature tree would be a lovely seasonal accompaniment to our house that would then join the other plants in the garden and continue its upward journey. Standing at just under a metre tall, it became the centrepiece of our Yuletide festive fun last year.

A perfectly pine-scented Yule

Sticky sap and pine scent, all part of the fun

My son dubbed the new addition to our household ‘Branchy’ and it filled the living room with a perfect pine scent. The poor old plastic one was relegated to the spare room. It even appeared in my promotional videos for my then forthcoming collection, Love you to Death.

A new lease of life in spring?

Farewell Branchy

In March, I put Branchy in a bigger pot in a shady part of the garden, in the hope that it would grow even bigger for Yule in 2025. But climate change had other plans. Branchy did not survive the early heatwave of April/May here in Northern Ireland, gradually turning brown and losing all its pine needles.

Mourning Branchy

How to reuse a dead miniature tree

After a brief mourning period, during which, in melodramatic fashion, I lamented Branchy’s death, and stated how I never want a real tree again because I doubted my gardening skills and felt sad to see it die (no seriously, lol), a new idea sprung to mind.

With hand-painted baubles decorated with embellishments

Celebrating Golden Branchy!

Instead of putting Branchy on the compost heap, I bought a can of gold spray paint and my son and I had fun turning Branchy into a festive treat, just in time for Christmas in July. Rather than soil in its golden pot, we filled it with foam peanuts and decorated it with summer baubles, which we painted and added ladybird, bumblebee and flower embellishments. Behold!

Posted by on July 25, 2025 in Random stuff and tagged , , , , .

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About Leilanie Stewart

Leilanie Stewart is an award-winning author and poet from Belfast, Northern Ireland. She writes ghost and psychological horror, as well as experimental poetry. Her writing confronts the nature of self; her novels feature main characters on a dark psychological journey who have a crisis and create a new sense of identity. She began writing for publication while working as an English teacher in Japan, a career pathway that has influenced themes in her writing. Her former career as an Archaeologist has also inspired her writing and she has incorporated elements of archaeology and mythology into both her fiction and poetry. In addition to promoting her own work, Leilanie runs Bindweed Anthologies, a creative writing publication with her writer husband, Joseph Robert. Aside from publishing pursuits, Leilanie enjoys spending time with her husband and their lively literary lad, a voracious reader of sea monster books.

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