We put up our family's Christmas tree last night. The first question before we began was where to put it? It seems every year we have a different place for it – the legacy of living in a house that's mid-renovation. After several rethinks we decided on plonking it to one side of the lounge. It turned out to be a great choice as the tree can now be seen from the lounge, the dining room, the deck, the front door and Mars (well, there are a LOT of lights on that tree!). After stringing around the lights, the boys went to work putting on the ornaments and it is now a thing of beauty. So every evening my boys will be willing the sun to go down so that they can turn on those lights. I think the cat has already developed a nervous twitch from watching them too much

But I don't think our festive decorations will quite match up to these – a sneak peek at the White House Christmas decorations for 2010.

The official White House Christmas tree in the Blue Room. The theme this year is “Simple Gifts”. Our theme is “put all the beautiful decorations at the front of the tree and hide the made-at-kindy ones at the back”.

The White House Christmas tree arrives on a traditional cart pulled by Clydesdale horses. Our tree arrived from the spare room wardrobe, pulled by mother.

The gingerbread house – um, yeah, sure. Mine looks just like that one. This one is a white chocolate replica of the White House with marzipan miniatures of the family dog, Bo, and the kitchen garden. Like, I said, just like mine …

The Cross Hall. Keeping up with the Obamas looks like it's going to be a hard task this Christmas.