The Breeding of Lists

Sliding bravely through and past stacked cardboard boxes, I eventually spy the top of Sally’s head in the gift shop stock room . “I have had a Eureka moment” I declaim – “I have the Christmas theme for 2029! I have coffee too”. Understandably Sally groans and fails, just at this moment, to share my enthusiasm.  

Sally has a whole series of thumbed and tabbed Christmas notebooks. The past ones record and remind her what was installed and where on previous years whilst this year's version is full of lists, rough diagrams and scribbled post it notes. Last year was a Victorian theme, the year before followed the story of the Three Kings, we were very medieval one year and the 1920’s and art deco inspired another. This last week she has just begun to glimmer with glitter as she dives into various sheds to confirm her plans.

From Highclere’s point of view, the key to life is to plan ahead, to reflect, then prepare and carry out the plan so that each day can be best enjoyed as there is theoretically less firefighting. To quote, Seneca :  “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” 

We set up and undertake all Highclere's Christmas decorations ourselves. Emmeline and the garden team help set in place the external trees which are, in turn, collected by the farm, whilst everyone in both the castle office and estate office, as well as a number of the guides help tie all the baubles on to each branch of the trees.  Luis’s team are good at clambering up ladders to sort lights out and on every surface, especially outside, are mince pies and boxes of celebrations.  

Whilst all these tasks are underway, Sally and the gift shop team assemble the inside mantle shelf and floral displays all of which were created last January and February before being carefully wrapped and stored. It is rather exciting as once more it begins to build a story, the colours, the brightness  and actually the wow factor! 

The whole process is about team building and it is always interesting to see how we all come together to build towards opening for Christmas. Highclere has a unique collection of characters, many of whom, in my view, could have been on stage and I always hope that the structure here allows people to flourish and be themselves whilst carrying on the everyday tasks at hand.  

Thankfully, Christmas does arrive just once a year so by the time we become Christmas elves again in November, we have forgotten some of the challenges of the previous year and return happily to picnicking every day on too many chocolates and panettone for the time we take to set up. I always allow a couple of extra days for when things go wrong.

One year I failed to quite grasp the size of the main tree and thought a few more feet would be fine – it was really not fine and we had to start all over again. John G the Castle Manager was hardly lucid by the end of the saga ..it is etched in my memory.  

Might you be able to guess what our theme for Christmas is this year? 🎄