First, position your owl...

Poet and artist Frieda Hughes talks fondly of the painstaking process of taking an intimate portrait of one of her beloveds – Wyddfa the snowy owl

‘Feathered whiteness against a blanket of red, adorn him with a necklace’ (Frieda Hughes)

Christmas past was a two-week break in which time to relax was shredded

By the writing of cards, because my love of others needed them to know.

I sacrificed my holidays in order to compose messages to many,

For why waste the escalating value of a stamp with only a signature?

But my annual ritual depleted joy as my festive freedom vanished

Into the closing of envelopes. By the time the last one was mailed

It would always be the end of the year, and I would be caught out

By the sudden absence of peace and goodwill. But Greeting Card Guilt

Hounded me every December, because I could no more not write a card

To the people I care about and remember, then I could forget them.

Until one year I ran out of days. I resorted to emails – personalised and quick;

No envelopes, no dead trees, just news and a cheery seasonal photo of

My snowy owl in tinsel. I received replies that brought those other lives

Right into the room. And so this year again, I position Wyddfa’s

Feathered whiteness against a blanket of red, adorn him with a necklace

Made by a friend, then find he will not look at the camera, only the walls,

The ceiling, the doors, the floor. Cat calls and coo-ees fail to attract his gaze,

As does dancing and waving my hands in the air. His eyes skate the room

As if searching for a lost relative until finally, there he is, my Christmas owl,

Fixing me with a stare, beak open, as if about to laugh: I take his photograph.