Normally I would try to avoid starting the Christmas celebrations until at least the start of December, but this year has been an exception since we were asked to decorate a tree for the Festival of the Trees at St Albans Town Hall. This event is being organised by Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust, who can be found just round the corner of Verulamium Museum.

• Visit the Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust website (this link will open in a new window)

Preparations started at the end of last week when all available staff joined in with the cutting, sticking and laminating of tree decorations. We used images of some of the objects from our collections to make decorations, including giant Roman and Iron Age gold coins for baubles!

An Iron Age coin transformed into a Christmas bauble

Since no Christmas tree would be complete without the angel on top, we decided to make our own slightly unconventional one by dressing up our Verulamium Venus so she was fit for a Christmas party! Unfortunately by the time she made it to the top of the tree she'd lost a sequin or two, but still looked pretty eye-catching.

The Verulamium Venus moonlighting as a Christmas angel!

We spent a lovely morning decorating our tree and are pretty proud with the result!

The finished tree in all its glory!

The Festival of Trees is open to the public on the 5th and 6th of December if you fancy seeing our tree and the many others decorated by other community groups.

• For more details, you can visit the Festival of Trees website (this link will open in a new window).
• You can also see these photos and others on our Facebook fan page (this link will open in a new window).