We're late. As usual. Christmas is over and we're now putting up our tree. As is always the case with us, we've fussed and argued over the details: which decoration to include, how the tinsel shoul...

We're late. As usual. Christmas is over and we're now putting up our tree. As is always the case with us, we've fussed and argued over the details: which decoration to include, how the tinsel should be draped, whether or not we should have a star on top . . . etc., etc., etc.. Small wonder then, through revisal after revisal, that we've managed Christmas week at all.

Just as an apology for our incessant delays caused mostly by our persistent punctiliousness around the manufacture of each ornament, we've turned the tree upside down and presented it here as a glittering necklace where the natural cone of the Norfolk Island Pine, divided into three distinct segments, is seen as the centerpiece. Much like the actual plant with its clearly separated horizontal branches, here too, each unit of the central panel is identical in shape but differentiated by their size and decorations.

The first has a plethora of katai, hand-wound wire-springs and rejis with an eye catching faceted pradip border hung with ball clusters; the one after that has the wire grill (all three do) but has lost the pradip edging and many of the inner details; the smallest is only a line of ring-rejis, a karai border and the grill. Below this is fixed a big bunch of orbs that is officially the top of the tree.The tipki-kamal chains with a row of chhela-topas in between and a ball border on both sides has ball-jhur going up a bit beside the centrepiece so that the dazzle of the tree continues around the neck (if you want, the little ball-thokas can be extended further and even all the way for a more regal effect). It's great as tinsel and does a fine job of lighting up the room without needless pomp.

Errant we may be, and so perhaps in your bad books. But Christmas is a season of joy and happiness and good deeds. It is a time of giving and forgiving.

Accordingly, we've given you an upside-down Christmas tree as penance, if you will, for our terrible tardiness in delivering your ornaments, and offer it, with sincere apologies and some hope for pardon, as a dazzling guinea-gold necklace handcrafted with meticulousness nearing madness; and to accompany it, two baby Pines as earrings.

Will you please forgive us?