They carried the fir tree out in the garden and planted it firmly in the snow. Then they started to decorate it all over with the most beautiful things they could think up.
They adorned it with the big shells from the summertime flower-beds, and with the Snork Maiden's shell necklace. They took the prisms from the drawing-room chandelier and hung them from the branches, and at the very top they pinned a red silk rose that Moominpappa had once upon a time given Moominmamma as a present.
Everybody brought the most beautiful thing he had to placate the incomprehensible powers of winter.
Tove Jansson, from Tales From Moominvalley, 1962
Translated by Thomas Warburton
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