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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

xmas2

 

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 Parenting

Addressing all Things Dressing Up

Author Nicki CawoodPosted on

Anyone who has children at nursery or at school will understand that throughout the school year parents and carers find themselves and their calendars at the mercy of the school newsletter. This powerful piece of paper heralds news including your class cake bake sale and similar.

I am that mother who calls her mother (or sisters) when the cake sale note comes round because while I cook brilliantly (even if I do say so myself) I’m a rubbish baker. What I make tastes fine but always looks uneven, lopsided or down right just strange.

Who though do you call  though when it comes to dress ing up days? I now have two boys at school and with alarming regularity throughout the terms we seem to have non-uniform / dress up days where the children come as certain special characters. Today for example is Superhero day. After many tears and tantrums I managed to borrow a onesie for one child, find a t-shirt for another and to be fair they looked pretty good. This is rare. Poor Kieran (my eldest) went for the Magna Carta day in a plain tshirt with an A4 sticker featuring a shield stuck to the front (that I printed off). Some parents simply aren’t meant to make costumes and I am one of them.

Superhero, costumes, Children in Need costumes

After spending all week stressing and worrying about what they would wear I now wish I’d bought something to be honest as at least then they could be used for other events and for home play, particularly for the 4 year old. This is what I will be doing from now on (and I’m guessing other parents have been doing for a while as I’ve seen very little panic over costumes on the school yard). One day soon I will have a dress up boy that is the envy of all my school parent chums!

I was recently introduced to Tickled Pink Fancy Dress and was rather chuffed to say the least to see not only the range of outfits they offer but also the price! Taylor (the 4yr old) especially loves to dress up and with his nativity around the corner and Christmas creeping up their Xmas range of fancy dress costumes is bound to be a life saver. In the past my biggest bug bear about costumes has not been finding them, it has been paying for them. With costumes such as this Boy’s Santa Costume available in three sizes including jacket, hat, belt and trouser for just £5.99 I really can’t complain. I’m thinking actually this might be fun to wear for the Christmas lights switch on event in town……

TP Costumes, Santa costume

Costumes are a part of most parent’s lives, whether they planned it that way or not and my friends, family and school yard companions will have heard many times before now that I haven’t ever planned properly for fancy dress or school costumes. That said now that I can see that there is an easier (and cheaper) way (so no more embarrassing Pinterest costume fails) which would be also reusable they might find me much less ranty of a Wednesday when the newsletters come out.

Maybe….

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