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In Christmas, Family Time, Food, General, MoneySaving, Parenting, Women's Interest

Things to Love About the Christmas Season 

Author Nicki CawoodPosted on

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I am known online and off as being something of a Christmas fairy. When it comes to the Christmas season I really am like a big kid. There are so many things to love about the Christmas season and I am very vocal about been in love with the whole shebang!

The Smell

When autumn really takes hold you start to get the lovely wood-smoke smell which seems to remind me of cinder toffee; when Christmas comes knocking it’s pine cones, mulled spice, berries and cold (cold does have a smell!). We tend not to go overboard with home fragrance but I already have a spiced berry wax melt in the burner and it’s helping to build the festive feeling nicely.

The Food

We eat at home (Roy, the boys and I) on Christmas day and have a pork dinner (thrown in the slow cooker in the early hours) and of course there’s stuffing, cranberry sauce, proper meat gravy, Yorkshires, Shloer and all of the other lovely stuff that we look forward to enjoying at Christmas.

Sadly the bread oven doesn't work but it gets a good Christmas polish up (and is a very sneaky place to hide Xmas goodies).
Sadly the bread oven doesn’t work but it gets a good Christmas polish up (and is a very sneaky place to hide Xmas goodies).

The Family

We visit Roy’s family on Christmas Eve to say hello and exchange gifts and do the same on Christmas morning with my family (we all live nearby). It’s great that we all live close enough so that we each other regularly through the year and have managed to keep the tradition up of sharing Christmas together while still having our own time and building our own individual traditions at home. Of course at Christmas we get to spend so much more time with the kids as we are both off which is a huge bonus!

The Traditions

Our Christmas is jam-packed with traditions, from the purchase of my first (of many) Christmas magazine to the Christmas Eve boxes the boys open after tea. My youngest sister and I always go Christmas shopping and out for a Christmas dinner just the two of us, that’s our tradition and we all enjoy the Christmas light switch-on in town (we live in a rural market town with a strong community feel so this is always a lovely evening).

 

Decorating the house together as a family is always a great fun tradition. 
Decorating the house together as a family is always a great fun tradition.

The Gifts

Anyone who says Christmas is not about the gifts at all is a fibber or a scrooge! I love Christmas shopping, finding things I know will make people laugh, that they’ll appreciate or find really useful. I also enjoy the challenge of buying for the two large families (I’m one of six siblings, Roy is one of four, then there are partners and children….) without breaking the bank. I have a special notebook and tick people off as I go, using money saving coupon sites and cashback as I go. The more we save, the more we can buy while staying within budget!

The Music

I adore the music that comes at Christmas time, from the 80’s faves to the more classical tunes. One of my favourites is Oh Holy Night and never fails to put me in the mood! The boys both do a lot at school of course at Christmas and so Little Donkey and similar is played or sung throughout!

What is it that you love about Christmas? Do you have a special tradition? An outing you look forward to or are you like me, someone who thoroughly enjoys everything, from the arts and crafts with the boys to cooking, shopping, decorating and beyond?

In Food, Healthy Eating, Weight Loss, Women's Interest

Slimming Down to Meet Health Goals

Author Nicki CawoodPosted on
From Xmas Day 2014 to the 7th June 2015. I'm starting to see a difference for the first time in a long time.
From Xmas Day 2014 to the 7th June 2015. I’m starting to see a difference for the first time in a long time.

Hands up if you’ve been ona diet of some sort on and off for as long as you can remember. Yes, me too.

My metabolism ground to a screeching halt when I was around 18 and has shown no signs of waking up ever since. Add to the mix the fact that I also have PCOS and you get someone who has had to actively diet constantly for years in order to remain a healthy-ish weight. I’m still not where I need to be, not being at goal for a while however at the end of last year my GP finally ripped off the plaster and told me that I was pre-diabetic, heading for Type 2 and that we needed to take action.

I’m now on a hefty dose of Metformin twice a day to control my blood sugars and what not which so far appears to be working. Being on a constant mission to slim down isn’t really something that is easy to maintain motivationwise however now I have definite health goals to aim for and warding off Type 2, a very real threat, is my focus (there’s also potentially a cholesterol thing going on, just to keep things interesting).

I switched a little while ago from Slimming World back to Weight Watchers (I was a gold member back in 2004/5 and haven’t seen the same weight since) to give myself a boost and something of a kickstart and I’m happy to announce that so far, so good.

I’m not usually one for measurements and before and after pictures, especially as this is an ongoing quest for health as opposed to a one road to a certain size however I really did want to share the above with you. Hell, if I can do it anyone can.

Any other Weight Watchers / pre diabetics, long term slimmers out there?

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