Negotiating the fine scented art of Christmas tree selection - Susan Morrison

I worried I might miss the scent of the real thing but, fear not, capitalism has stepped in sharpish and developed a range of body sprays for trees to keep your spruce smelling, well, spruce.

I toyed with ideal of fake spruce, but you can’t beat a real Christmas tree

I knew this potential change would have miffed our cats. They both believe that this time of the rolling year is Giant Cat Scratching Pole with Pine-tasting Water Bowl season. Gertie is particularly fond of a festive evening slurp.

Anyway, the proposed tradition-busting died in the face of my children’s wails of disappointment. They're both well into adulthood, but they're still my kids. Few parents can ride out the guilt trip of sad wee faces.

So, a real tree was to be collected. First, the car must be prepared. The back seats must be lowered and the Yorkshireman insists on protective measures against needle infestation. We keep an old white shower curtain to keep the car tidy.

Shower curtains are notoriously given to flap even in the mildest draught. This was a breezy day. It's quite a big shower curtain and I am quite a small person. I held it up. The wind blew. The curtain promptly cling-filmed me. Blinded, I flailed about the street, looking like a ghost that Dickens cut from the final edition of A Christmas Carol.

Managed to unwrap myself, and my son and I took off for tree buying, armed with a tape measure. The car is sturdy, but not big.

We quickly found a tree we liked and the friendly chaps whooshed it through the magic tree wrapping machine, which I find hugely entertaining. They also helpfully cut away a chunk at the bottom so that we could water it properly at home. This released a load of sap, which sent a wave of Christmas scent over us.

My son hefted the tree onto his shoulder and off we set for the carefully prepared car. Somehow, between the measured selection, cutting and wrapping, it had grown some six inches and was now what could be described as a ‘tight fit’. The front stuck a bit out of the passenger window, but I reasoned it was a short trip and my son had his big jacket on, so he wouldn’t freeze.

The car reeked like someone had bought the world’s biggest pine-scented tree-shaped air freshener to hang off the rear-view mirror. I’m not saying it wasn’t nice. It was just a tad overpowering and made our eyes water. That, and the needles in our faces. I opened the driver's window.

That sweet scented sap, it turned out, was possibly the stickiest thing I’ve had on my hands since I instinctively caught my daughter's candy floss when it got blown away in a Force Five gale.

At one point I realised I was pretty much glued to the steering wheel and could only change gear by losing a layer of skin.

The wind whipped through the car as we drove home like a pair of WW1 fighter aces who had misjudged a low-level flypast over a Christmas tree plantation.

We got safely home and lifted the tree into the Giant Cat Watering Bowl. It looks lovely.