Strike Christmas Tree 2025: New additions and ornament giveaway

My office Christmas tree rivals the Ellacott family Land Rover (RIP) in age and decrepitude; it used to be in my mom's high school classroom and she retired around 2001.  I used to put it up in my faculty office to give the place a little holiday cheer during finals; one of my students called it the "Charlie Brown tree." Now that I am working from home, and have a newly remodeled office, I moved it here, set it up on top of my file cabinet and wrapped the base up in a Ravenclaw blanket. This year, I decided it would host all my Cormoran Strike ornaments, since I added substantially to my collection this year, mostly due to luck. My final count of new additions wound up at 1 made, 3 purchased, 1 gifted and 1 re-purposed. 

It's not an exclusively Strike tree (yet!) and still has an assortment of ornaments I collected during my student, faculty and ABA clinic days--- for instance, it's topped by a popsicle stick star made for me by one of my first clients-- and of course a few Harry Potter ornaments (though most of those have their own tree on the main floor) But I'm particularly looking forward to enjoying my Strike collection--- my equivalent to the charm bracelet, during this holiday season and as I walk through the Advent Adventure in my Hallmarked Man re-read. 

My favorite is, of course, the beautiful needlepoint Denmark Street office, gifted to me by reader "Chilly Hollow." It is incredibly clever, with the 12 Bar and the guitar shop decked out for the holidays and the tiny tree in the office window, and far better than anything I could ever craft for myself. I've received gifts from readers before, but this is one of my favorites. It looks great on the tree and yes, that's Robin's Land Rover parked behind the building. 

The three that I bought, perhaps not surprisingly, were all booze-related. I found the glass of whiskey at Pottery Barn, and it seemed just the thing to commemorate the great whiskey nights in the office in Troubled Blood and in the Z Hotel in The Ink Black Heart. It's actually an old-fashioned, and you can see a bit of orange garnish floating in it, but I can live with that. The second was a $5 beer glass from Target; I added the Doom Bar logo in honor of Strike's favorite drink, since sadly, my attempts to find a coaster in a pub on my UK trip in 2023 were unsuccessful. A reader alerted me to the fact that Target also had the "Push for Champagne" buttons, so I picked up one of those in honor of both Robin's and my visits to Bob Bob Ricard. Though it does not look like the button at BBR, the pink, white and gold color scheme works. Now, if I could just figure out how to get the button itself wired up so it would actually work...

The repurposed ornament is one that has been on my tree for years. It's a DNA strand, handmade by my mom, a longtime biology teacher. She used to do these as a Christmas project with her AP students; it's scientifically accurate, with color-coded nucleotide based appropriately paired. I decided to group it with the Strike ornaments, given the DNA emoji that was among the hints Galbraith gave us for The Hallmarked Man. Although my guess of hallmark genes being part of the plot came to naught, it did get me my first (and only) invited article for The Rowling Library. 

The ornament I made was the kitten-bedecked death threat from Cuckoo's Calling. I designed the envelope template on Powerpoint, then printed it out and laminated it, experimenting a bit until I was happy with the size of the kittens. It's postmarked from the City of London P.O., and dated 27 March 2010, the Saturday before the Monday on which Robin opened it, on her first day in the office as a temp. 

I have several extras of this one and I would love to give them away to other readers who have Strike and Ellacott holiday decor.  Please send me a picture of your ornaments or holiday display, to share on the blog, at divergentindepth@gmail.com and I will mail them off to the first ones to respond. 

May your holiday be free of snuff films, vomiting, unwanted nudes and bathroom toxicity and full of silver charm bracelets, surveillance courses or whatever else would bring you joy. 

Having trouble subscribing or commenting?  try the Substack version! Always free, always will be!