It’s taken me too long to complete this! Started over the New Year, but then got distracted by life and Blender gremlins.
Anyway, a Happy New Year to everyone, and many thanks for making this community so kind and welcoming and helpful. May your 2023 be filled with beautiful renders.
Thanks to @RyanKingArt for another excellent tutorial on building a Christmas tree. Some really neat tricks in there.
Added rotating text with the help of the tutorial by Tom McDonald and I learn the shader animation from the crazy hilarious lazy tutorial from Ian Hubert.
Did get lost for a while down the black hole of Blender colour management. I wrote up the notes to help other beginners like me to get a better understanding of what’s going on.