This year’s Christmas tree outside Cornwall Hospice Care’s Mount Edgcumbe Hospice is unusual to say the least.  

The role has gone to the stunning Monkey Puzzle that towers over the drive way.  In a delicate operation slices of drain pipe were used to place the lights on to the prickly branches.

Every year Cornwall Hospice Care erect Christmas trees outside both of the charity’s hospices. At Mount Edgcumbe Hospice a plan was hatched in the summer to find a tree that could be planted, rather than cut down and erected just for the festive season. 

The mission was successful but with Christmas approaching there wasn’t time to transplant the new tree and the Monkey Puzzle was called in to action.

Clare Bray organises the charity’s Light up a Life events and says the tree was the focal point of this years’ service.

She said: ’We held the service outside this year and were gathered round the Monkey Puzzle tree. The lights were switched on as Loveny Male Voice Choir performed a traditional New Zealand carol.

’The delight was visible on the faces of those gathered as well as a few tears as the lights represent the lives of those being remembered.’