Just Around The Corner!

I'm sorry, but it is the middle of November, so we really cannot ignore the reindeer in the room any longer (yes, I know it's 'elephant', but humour me a little, I'm trying to make it seasonal). Christmas really is just around the corner.

Please don't ignore me

In our house that means getting presents and getting them wrapped over the next couple of weeks so that come December we can relax; but the main reason for me, is that I have the misfortune of having a birthday less than a week before Christmas and I absolutely do not want to be shopping and wrapping on or around my birthday, thank you kindly. Besides, there really is nothing I dislike more that traipsing around shops during the holiday season, be that a shopping centre or a supermarket. Needless to say, I have already purchased the turkey (which is currently nestled in the freezer) and the Christmas Pudding (which is hiding in the back of  a cupboard). I have to mention, that I am the only person in the house to actually eat Christmas Pudding and so, in my infinite wisdom, I have bought a large one. I did consider a small one, or even a medium one, but they just didn't look right, needless to say, I will be eating pudding for quite some time from the 25th December (and there's a very real danger that I may end up being rather pudding shaped).

Thankfully, we don't have too much buying to do, as I only have a small family and this year we decided to have a crafty Christmas, so that our gifts would be more meaningful to the recipients and because it's far more fun than buying generic stuff from the High Street.

We normally put the trees up two weeks before the big day, but last year I decided to surprise the girls and got the trees up on 1st December, ready for them to decorate when they got back from school. It worked really well, they were really surprised and excited and enjoyed having the trees up early. I will be doing the same this year, mainly because one of the trees has spent the entire year sitting in its box by my back door and, quite frankly, I want it out of the way now. Why didn't you just put it away in January, you may ask? That, dear reader, is a very good and very just question indeed, and the short answer is, I tweaked my back in the New Year and it took months to ease; the tree is large so the box is large and trying to get it down the back garden path, out of the gate and into the garage was just not happening. Anyway, by the time we'd got to April, I decided it may as well stay there.

You may have noticed I said trees as opposed to tree and that's because we have two trees, one in the playroom and one in the living room. This is because, I am a little bit...okay, I am very precious about my Christmas Tree. So the girls have one downstairs which they can decorate however they wish and then we have my tree in the living room, which they can decorate, but only under strict instruction from myself. Why am I so precious about a tree? Well, growing up, decorating the tree was part of my birthday celebration. And that is why we have two trees.

I'm looking forward to Christmas, but it's not going to be the same this year. Neither of my girls believes in Father Christmas anymore, which means they don't believe in the Pyjama Elf either (yes we have an elf that delivers the Christmas PJ's on Christmas Eve whilst the girls are in bath) and that makes me a little sad.

However, that doesn't mean there will be no stockings. Stop stockings, just because they don't think Santa is real anymore, I think not! Stockings will always be a thing in this house, at least until the girls move out. It's one of the things that makes the morning so much fun, watching them delve through their stockings, picking things out and getting super excited about random stuff that they would normally find boring. Now there's an idea, perhaps I could put a list of boring household tasks in their stockings this year along with the necessary equipment to complete them...yep, I think that may be pushing it a bit and would most likely go down like a lead balloon, but the looks on their faces would be priceless, but I'm not that mean, so I will refrain from such wickedness.

Oh dear, now I've written about it I am even more excited, so I should probably finish up now, otherwise the trees will be going up mid November and that really won't do at all. How are your preparations going? Do you like to get everything done early, or do you prefer to do it all last minute? Let me know in the comments.