The Christmas decorations we refuse to throw away

There is usually one decoration you would never buy now. It may be a glittery bird with an implausible tail, or a bauble in a colour that appears nowhere else in the house. For eleven months it lies wrapped in tissue. Then December arrives, you lift it out of the box, and immediately know which branch it belongs on.

Taste can be wonderfully inconsistent at Christmas. The person who spends weeks choosing a lampshade will happily display a small knitted pudding. The pudding may even receive better treatment: its own tissue, its own corner of the box, a brief enquiry if it fails to appear. Meanwhile, the carefully coordinated ornaments bought during a more restrained phase are underneath the spare hooks.

We like this version of decorating. It allows for affection, dreadful purchases and the fact that a house is lived in across several decades of changing taste. There is pleasure in recognising things as they come out. Replacing the whole lot with a matching set would mean losing that annual reunion, along with a very good excuse to discuss who bought the bird.

Still, the urge to add something is understandable. The decorations have been away for so long that the first glimpse of coloured glass can be dangerously persuasive. A handful of new baubles is a manageable indulgence. In the illustration, the indented glass catches the light in little hollows, with gold details and colours that would sit happily among an assortment of older ornaments.

You can repeat a colour you already own without requiring every decoration to match it. A yellow bauble might pick up a gold ribbon; a purple one can simply be there because you like purple. Turn it slightly and the hollow catches a different light. It gives you something else to look at among the familiar pieces.

Texture helps a mixed tree feel considered. The small felt woodland shapes have a soft, matt surface beside the glass. A toadstool, a fir tree and a reindeer provide quite enough woodland for one purchase. They can join the existing collection without requiring everyone else to be woodland too, which is useful if the knitted pudding is staying.

At the table, the Christmas box has less to answer for. The everyday plates already fit the cupboards and the people who use them. A tartan runner gives them something festive to sit beside, leaving the edge of the timber visible. Red and green supply plenty of colour; there is no obvious vacancy for six new Christmas mugs.

The red LED tapers repeat that red higher up, in a slender shape that leaves room for serving dishes. Their holders are bought separately, so an existing set may be useful if it fits. We would keep the rest loose: familiar glasses, whatever napkins are clean, enough space for somebody to put down the potatoes without rearranging a centrepiece.

Then comes the point when the boxes are empty enough and the room is finished enough. There may be one corner of the tree carrying far more decoration than the others. It is probably the corner you can see from the sofa. Put the wrapping tissue back in the box, make something to drink and enjoy it. The odd glittery bird has survived another edit. By now, nobody was seriously going to remove it.