The boxes are almost as old as some of their contents. Glass balls, fairy lights, bows and tinsel garlands – they're all here.
Some fragile cardboard and glitter decorations my kids made when they were little sparkle next to newer tin toys we've collected on our travels.
These little gems are full of memories of Christmases past and finding them every December is a sign that the holidays are coming again.
However, most of my decorations haven't made it out of the boxes for several years, which would have been unthinkable for me before.
This Christmas? They all go up the tree. After my husband John died in July 2020 at just 63 years old, I looked forward to the Christmas that followed with dread.
Janet Ellis now lives with her grandson Sonny and has rediscovered her enthusiasm for the festive season
For someone who had loved everything about the season, from opening the first window of the Advent calendar to eating the last leftover turkey, it was a shock to suddenly find everything rather superficial and often meaningless after John's death.
Even writing cards was a mystery to me, I couldn't bear the utter loneliness of my name without his.
And when I came home, after spending time with our children, grandchildren and friends, unable to discuss the day with him, relive all the fun or share any gossip, I was filled with grief empty.
All the frivolous things we would have liked to do together – things like planning gifts, testing recipes (let's be honest, usually cocktails), listening to Christmas carols, watching Christmas shows, or even hanging out with friends – all felt remote and exhausting.
The time between Christmas and New Year's Eve, normally a time of blissful idleness and leisure, felt bleak and lonely.
Of course there were moments of happiness, and I always felt that if I had hidden I would have let John down. But I often copied the movements.
Three years later, as anyone who has lost a partner will tell you, they are nothing more than discarded calendars. John is still my husband, I still love him and the fact that he isn't here is as hard to believe as ever.
This year, however, my festive spirit has been rekindled.
In the last few years, since her husband died, Janet's Christmas decorations haven't made it out of the boxes. This year, however, they are all going up the tree
How? Well, there are two of us in the house again. I'll explain. At the beginning of last year, my daughter Sophie, 44, mentioned that it would be an idea to consider the possibility of the eldest of her five sons coming to live with me. Note “mentioned,” “an idea,” “considering,” and “possibility.”
At the time, Sonny was in his senior year of school and ready to move on, but not quite ready for the next adventure of “doing it all on his own.”
“It would be a loving stopover before he moves on to share with friends,” she said. It would also allow the household to redistribute bedrooms, something his brothers were keen on.
To be clear, Sophie, her husband Richard and my five grandchildren live near London, I see them all often and Sonny and I are very close.
We also have a lot in common. We share a love of anime movies, sushi, and people watching, to name a few. But that seemed to be a completely different perspective for him living here.
That would mean making sure he gets up, eats right, and keeps him safe (mainly getting him up). Wouldn't that change our relationship? Wouldn't it also reveal that underneath my normally cheerful grandma demeanor there might be a bossy and inflexible old woman lurking?
At the time, Sonny was pretty neutral about the idea and we needed at least a fraction of over 50 percent approval, so we left it alone.
Fast forward to this summer. Sonny started his junior year of college and all of those “maybes” and “possibilities” became real.
Sonny celebrates his 18th birthday with his mother, singer-songwriter Sophie Ellis-Bextor
His brothers – Kit, 14, Ray, 11, Jesse, eight, and Mickey, almost five – were all in school, the household was in disarray. Sonny definitely thought that moving here seemed not only logical but also exciting.
He would gain a kind of freedom, as Sophie's household inevitably tends to be limited to the youngest members.
As for me, after three years of putting out the trash cans and walking the dog alone, maybe now I have not only a companion, but maybe a helper sometimes?
Cooking for one person isn't as fun as the cookbooks suggest. I would have someone to cook and eat with. And it turns out there is someone to hang the decorations with.
It is immeasurably pleasant when someone you know is around, especially at this time of year.
Our family Christmases have always been big, happy events. My earliest memory of Christmas, apart from hoping for a pony and eating too many Cadbury Rose chocolates unsupervised, is the memory of my parents asking us children to follow my mother's uncle as he made the plum pudding wore.
After we had eaten the turkey with all the trimmings and it seemed as if the adults would never get up from the table again, there was suddenly a lot of activity.
To the tune of For He's a Jolly Good Fellow, we sang “Here Comes the Christmas Pudding” and wound our way through the house conga style.
Janet with her late husband John. The couple enjoyed the time between Christmas and New Year as a time of happy idleness and cozy get-togethers
Most of the time we went out into the streets and even into our neighbors' houses.
The keeper of the flame (literally: the pudding was lit with burning brandy) was always the oldest adult male. Since my grandfathers had been gone for a long time, Great-Uncle Gerald took their place.
After his death, the task – I mean the honor – fell to my father, who liked to make intricate circles so that the conga would be knotted at the end. Whoever initiated this ritual – and, thank God, why – is lost in the mists of time.
Then, after Dad died, my husband John took over.
As someone who had only married into this family, he could not have imagined that he would end up holding a flaming pudding and leading an unruly, singing band, but he did it with grace and not a little style.
Sophie was eight years old and we already had our son Jackson, now 36, when John and I celebrated our first family Christmas. (Within just a year, John and I had gotten together, I had left Blue Peter, and Jackson had arrived in August.)
This year I appeared in Aladdin with Anita Dobson and as with any pantomime we only had Christmas Day off so we invited the whole family to join in. It turned out there were 14 people.
Over time it became apparent that it was a fairly small congregation. Our attendance record is 28. Friends, family, friends of friends of family – we got into the habit of inviting people without counting how many chairs we had.
Janet with grandson Sonny as a baby. The two have a lot in common these days, including a love of anime movies, sushi, and people watching
As Sophie's household grew, the Christmas party baton magically passed to her and Richard. I always add stuffing for the turkey, bread sauce and pudding.
But don't be fooled when Sophie takes a blowtorch to a gingerbread house and Christmas cards in this year's M&S Christmas advert: they're both brilliant hosts and fabulous cooks.
To the groaning pile of treats and traditions over the years, we've added Pieface (the board game with dangerous amounts of whipped cream), extremely silly tree gifts—everything from canned fish to noisy toys—and the presence of a faux snow machine.
Like many people who celebrate Christmas, the days surrounding the date were filled with comforting habits and rituals.
When and how we opened our presents, drank mulled wine, drank crackers, sang Christmas carols, or played charades was non-negotiable. The familiarity was part of the joy.
That's what being together was like. Over the years, I have always taken a moment to look around at my growing brood, our gathered friends and family, and felt grateful.
When John was diagnosed with tonsil cancer in 2016, he found out just before Christmas. From then on, bad news seemed to keep coming, and with alarming regularity.
Over the next three years, Christmas took on a previously unknown dimension – expect the unexpected and count on nothing.
Janet's daughter Sophie in this year's M&S Christmas advert – where she uses a blowtorch to attack a gingerbread house and Christmas cards
I look at a photo of us from 2018. We play the water game. It's another ritual: someone chooses a category, say “dog breeds”, privately writes down an example – “Italian Spinones”, for example the best dogs of all time – and goes around the group asking for their suggestions.
If they think of the same example that the player wrote down, they get an eggcup full of water dumped on their heads. Then it's their turn to choose a category. Got it? (I'm probably sorry you asked.)
In this photo, John is punching the air in delight as our son recovers from having water splashed on his head. I laugh too.
Although we had another Christmas together, this was truly our last as John took a short break from his cancer treatment so he was able to enjoy every aspect of the holiday season.
At Christmas 2019 he was more tired, had little appetite and sometimes even wandered away from our noisy company. He died the following summer.
This year, 2020, the prospect of Christmas was not joyfully anticipated and planned, but rather a big deal.
Not only would we unimaginably spend time without him for the first time, but the sudden announcement of lockdown also meant that my children, grandchildren and I could not be together.
My younger daughter Martha bubbled with me and we stood outside in the freezing air with her brother and sister to open our presents. I know I'm not the only one who has found this particular holiday season difficult.
While the house has been full of decorations in previous years, this year I had a small last minute tree and nothing else.
Just as Janet and John enjoyed their own routines, she is confident that she and Sonny will invent their own traditions over time
John was a minimalist by nature and I always thought he would tolerate my festive excesses until I caught him stringing lights to the plant outside our front door. To him, these were practically the lights of Oxford Street.
But I know he would have hated the house without the glitter and decorations I insisted on.
The arrival of my grandson Sonny changed everything. Luckily, I've been living where I am since long before Sonny was born. My children grew up here, so the house looks familiar; one less thing to get used to.
However, it wasn't easy to clear out cupboards and prepare a room. Over the years I had gotten good at seeing selectively and only seeing what I wanted to see, but I had to admit that I left the guest room not only tired, but also cluttered with everyone's things, just until me had the space, mom's things.
Inevitably, much of this release was difficult. Old school books, letters, drawings, photos… everything was full of memories of our lives before the loss of John and the unbearable reality since.
But at least this was a targeted sorting. I boxed up countless books (why is it so hard to let go of books?) and forced the kids to make decisions they had also been putting off: “keep it or keep it.”
When Sonny arrived, it felt like the room was his alone.
Wireless Internet access. What had suited me and the occasional visitor coughed and choked with new demands. See also: milk. It's amazing how much a teenager can drink in just one cup of tea. Everything that used to take me weeks is happening at an unusual speed.
Janet enjoys discussing the world with Sonny as she is just beginning to discover it
We also found out a) that there is a dishwasher and b) where it is located, and I'm sure the step of actually putting things in it each time you use it is just a small step.
Of course, written down these quibbles look petty, but they are part of the larger, mutual adjustment for both of us.
Fortunately, I would need more space to detail the benefits. Sonny is articulate, emotionally astute and very funny.
There's no grumpy teenage sulking and it's great to discuss the world with someone who's just starting to discover it.
Nothing he does drives me crazy, it's more about recognizing what needs to be said and what doesn't. I also realize that there are many things about me that probably irritate him.
We also share the room with my big dog Angela. I'm used to them, but even I can see that their often messy habits pose a challenge.
We respect each other's privacy, but he is much more than just a lodger.
A few weeks after Sonny moved in, his then seven-year-old brother Jesse wanted to inspect his room. His reaction was as wonderful as if we had opened the door to Wonderland.
While she will never miss John, Janet is looking forward to new adventures with her new roommate
He admired every detail, from the row of pens on Sonny's desk to the view out the window. Finally he turned to me. “Can I live here when I grow up?” he asked.
“Well, with Sonny the outcome is open,” I told him. “But I’m sure you’ll get there in about ten years.”
He looked around again. “So,” he said in a low voice, “Can I have this room?”
I could tell Sonny was both amused and a little annoyed. “It’s my room,” he said.
“That’s it,” I agreed. It's really.
I'm in the middle of making our Christmas puddings and I'm going to ask Sonny to stir the mixture and make a wish, like we always did.
Plus, he's big enough that he doesn't need help putting the fairy on the tree. Bonus!
And just as John and I have established routines and traditions with our family, I'm sure Sonny and I will create some too.
By the way, my son-in-law Richard took on the task of showing us around with the pudding. He is a natural talent.
Things have to change, and if there is always an empty space where John should be, we are blessed that we can all talk about him often, easily and with laughter.
Although I will never give up on John and the beautiful life we shared, I am ready for new adventures with my most adorable new roommate.