There is a tradition in Colombia called Novenas which starts nine days before Christmas. Family, friends, colleagues and neighbours all get together every night to pray in a different house, in a countdown to the festive day.

Growing up, I remember my four sisters and I would go to each house during Novenas and marvel at the beautifully decorated Christmas trees. In our house we never had enough money for luxuries and back then a Christmas tree was considered one.

When I was ten, my sisters and I became besotted with our neighbour's Christmas tree. We arrived home from their house after Novenas and decided that we absolutely must have one of our own. We were adamant.

In fact, we insisted so much that my father had no choice but to agree. "Yes!" he finally said. "This year we will have a Christmas tree." More than anything he wanted to see his daughters happy.

Our mouths dropped open and our eyes sparkled at the thought of having our very own tree. Then Dad said, "I'll do it myself."

Now, my father had worked hard all of his life. He was tall and strong and through necessity had become very clever with his hands, often fixing things around the house for my mother. Even so, we were not quite sure what he meant by "I'll do it myself."

Curious, we followed him around the house as he gathered up the mysterious materials he would need. First, he went into our bedroom and took two drawers from the wardrobe. The drawers were dark brown and made from wood and all four sides were equal in size. Carefully he glued the drawers together to make a perfect box.

Next he took the box into the lounge room and meticulously marked it with a black pen, making points one centimetre apart. Then he hammered a nail into every black point he had marked - there must have been at least 50 nails.

When he had finished hammering, he stood, looked at the wall and made a mark on it, about one-and-a half metres from the floor. He then put another nail in the mark on the wall - only bigger, longer and stronger than the other nails.

We all sat close to him, carefully watching everything he did, but still we had no idea what he was doing. Finally he put the box on the floor against the wall, turned to us smiling, and said, "Almost ready!"

Confused, we all looked at each other as if to say, "What is he talking about?" But we had no time to ponder it further as my father went in search of the final ingredient he needed to make the tree. Again, we all traipsed after him.

My mother used to knit sometimes and she would put all the leftover material in a box. My father opened that box and took out a ball of strong green cotton thread. He then passed the ball of thread around the first nail on the corner of the box, then up to the nail on the wall, then back down to the second nail on the box, and up again to the nail on the wall and so on and so forth, until right there before our eyes a green Christmas tree began to take shape. He carefully did the same with all of the 50 nails in the box and when he had finished he said, "Now you guys can decorate it."

I don't remember where the decorations came from, but they were red and small and to us they just looked so beautiful and perfect for our tree. When we finished decorating it, he took a small set of Christmas lights and passed it around the nail on the wall, then back down to cover the tree.

When it was complete, we proudly invited all our friends over to see our Christmas tree - we were so excited by it, not only because it looked so pretty, but because my father had made it himself. It truly was the most beautiful Christmas tree we had ever seen.

My parents could not afford to buy us presents that year, but the lights of the Christmas tree lit the house every night during the festive season. Years later, things got better and Dad was able to buy a proper Christmas tree which we would happily decorate every season. But my sisters and I will never forget the thread tree. It was so special because Dad did it with so much love for his daughters. Even today, we all still remember the night when we got our first Christmas tree.

Yolanda Maria Baker, 33, was born in Colombia but moved to Sydney in 2002 after meeting her husband Peter, 38. They have a two-year-old daughter, Isabel. 24