My Christmas Posts

Sometimes events conspire to make something happen.

On Friday I wrote about feeling fed up and uninspired and lots of people were supportive, suggesting a break might be needed. I suspect they might be right and I’m going to review what I do in the new year. However, just writing about how I was feeling has given me a bit of a boost. Admitting to the sense of inertia has helped to overcome it, a little at least.

Plus himself and large boy are currently watching football.

And my back hurts, so I’d rather be standing in the kitchen than loafing on the sofa, failing to get comfortable.

So, here I am. At almost 8pm, not long in from fetching small boy back from Beavers. I’ve eaten my ready meal dinner, put on my PJs, quickly checked my work email and put out a little fire before it took hold, sent some messages about rugby and now I’m writing a blog post.

Let’s get on with it then.

My Christmas Posts

I want to start with some honesty and make it absolutely clear that I am not a Christmas obsessive. We don’t put lights up on the outside our house, trying to outshine the street lights. We don’t put up any decorations inside until after large boy’s birthday towards the middle of December. My tree is not coordinated, with matching tinsel and baubles, it’s pure memories and random dangly things the kids have made of that have been gifts.

I just wanted to set your expectations there.

For me Christmas is about taking time out, eating lots of food, with as little preparation as good quality will allow, and sharing gifts. My mum’s family tradition is to see who can make the gifts the receive last longest. Mum always won as she had loads of teacher gifts.

Nevertheless, here are some posts I’ve written about Christmas over the last few years. I hope you find something in one of them that interests you.

Advent Activities

You’ll notice a lot of commonalities and some reuse between these posts. But each year, we vary our activities a bit and you’ll see that the types of things we do have changed as the boys have grown up.

• 2019
• 2020
• 2021
• 2022

Christmas Dinner 2019

I’d completely forgotten this post. My main memory from 2019 isn’t being seated apart from the boys, but from standing in my sister-in-law’s kitchen in quiet tears because boy3 wasn’t there with us.

A Christmas Story

Oh I loved writing this story. I think I should do some more. Each year, I think it’ll be large boy’s last year believing Santa’s real. My dad thinks he’s just playing that he believes now. Who knows.

Food

There have been a lot of food posts about Christmas. I think this year will be a replay of last year, so no plans to repeat myself. Here are some particular posts though:

• Treat recipes from 2020
• Mincemeat from 2021
• Roast Beef from 2021
• Nut Roast from 2021

Other Bloggers

I think many other bloggers do Christmas better than me. I’m sure a hell not doing blogmas!

• My Favourite Posts from 2020
• 2020’s best bloggers Christmas Tags
• Other People’s Ideas from 2021
• Getting to Know Me Festive Edition from 2021

Some of Our Favourite Gifts

We love a board game, especially at Christmas. I shared our favourite 2020 gifts at the start of 2021, having thoroughly considered them and decided which we liked best.

Homemade Decorations

Last year I picked up some very cheap short strings of lights at a car boot and made my own light bottles with some gin-related leftover tableware.

Teacher’s Gifts

We do gifts for the boys’ class teachers every year. It’s nice to show our appreciation. I tend to go for gin, jam, mincemeat, and mince pies in some combination of other. Here were my 2019 bits and bobs.

Thanks

I want to say a big massive than you to everyone who sympathised and supported me in my mini-blogging crisis last week. If you would like to me to share any festive themed posts, send them my way and I’ll perhaps to a round up in a couple of weeks.