MY hands and arms are covered in livid scratches, I give random startled yelps as a thorn buried deep in the ball of my thumb reminds me it is there, and my hair emits occasional showers of twigs and bird droppings – yes, I have just come in from erecting the outdoor Christmas lights.

While this only involves festooning one rowan tree and one pyracantha bush with two sets of lights, it is a task which always leaves me trembling and desperately reaching for a hearty slug of mulled wine.

Festive decorations have always been fraught with anxiety for me, ever since I was a small boy, and my father would produce our three foot tall artificial Christmas tree from the back of the wardrobe.

Its branches were all but bereft of faux needles, and it reeked of the smoke of many Christmases past, but its dreadful fascination lay in the fact that at the end of each spindly limb was a little spike and cup for holding candles.

Every year, usually on his return from the Royal Oak, my father would root out every candle stub in the house, ranging from mighty waxen monoliths which may once have graced the high altar of Manchester Cathedral to the slender tapers my nana used to deploy to light the mantles of her gas-lit cottage.

These would be supplemented by assorted multi-hued birthday candles, and all jammed on to the spikes of the little tree, where each one would be lit with a hand shaking somewhat after the consumption of an unseemly number of pints of strong ale.

We would then sing carols, and watch in morbid terror as the flames licked hungrily at the skeletal tree, willing my father to slump into his usual post pub coma so we could blow the candles out before the house burned down.

When I got married and had a house of my own, Mrs Hextol and I opted for a real tree for many years, despite the fact that putting it up threatened the stability of our marriage every year without fail. These were the days before tree stands, so the fragrant fir had to be wedged into a bucket with logs and other material before we could even begin to decorate it.

Lying face down on the floor with a branch up one nostril and ears full of shrill cries of “That’s not straight – what are you lying down there for?” ringing in my ears is something I will never forget.

Then there were the lights, which took an hour to untangle and then glowed merrily until the last one was artfully arranged on the tree – and then went out. Spare bulbs which were spilling out of every drawer in Hextol Towers for 11 months of the year would all mysteriously vanish come December.

One did turn up unexpectedly one year though – I was changing one of my boys’ nappies when I spotted it glinting among the effluvia. I don’t know when or how he came to eat it, but when I plugged it in, it still worked!

I thought my Christmas tree troubles were over when we purchased a very realistic artificial one from a local garden centre more than two decades ago, and it is still providing admirable service – but then Mrs Hextol decreed we needed outside lights too.

This involves me climbing a ladder, often balanced on two bricks, whilst trying not to stand on the many miles of wire and tinkling bulbs swathed round my feet and blocking my ears to the imperious knocking on the conservatory glass as Mrs Hextol indicates I am putting everything in hopelessly inappropriate locations.

Rowans in themselves are fairly innocuous trees, providing one discounts those old wives’ tales about it being unlucky to cut one down, or even cut a branch off, but ours is a bit of vicious beast, as a wickedly barbed rose has rambled up the trunk and infiltrated its branches with needle-sharp thorns.

Other things I have to deal with are the hanging basket holder which pokes me in the belly, and the clothes prop which comes down on my hand like a guillotine, not to mention the clothes line which becomes irredeemably entangled with 140 bulbs.

There is still the burying of the wire to contend with, to prevent me or the dog tripping over it.

Thankfully, there are still several weeks to go before I have to go through the whole process in reverse to take them all down again!