An absolutely classic Blogmas post is my top five Christmas songs…
So, here it is!
1. Last Christmas by Wham!
My ALL TIME favourite. The best Christmas song of all time.
2. Step into Christmas by Elton John
It’s a brilliant catchy and upbeat Christmas song. This one always puts me in a good mood.
3. Merry Christmas by Ed Sheeran and Elton John
This is a very recent Christmas song and usually I love the classics the best, however I really do think that this one is a brilliant catchy Christmas song for more recent times in particular, it reminds you to enjoy, appreciate and embrace this festive time of year with family (especially after 2020) and I love a bit of Ed Sheeran, boy can he write a tune!
4. Merry Christmas Everyone by Shakin’ Stevens
This is an absolute classic, and it really reminds me of my childhood. I used to listen to it at home and on the TV music channels (when they were a thing) and it was always on loads, just a classic Christmas song.
5. Christmas Dance by Darren Criss
Darren Criss is one of my favourite artists, and again, this is quite a recently released song, from his album ‘A Very Darren Crissmas’, and I love it. It’s SO catchy and feel good. It gets you up and moving and having fun.
And today I am going to show you which Advent Calendars I have this year. I’ve got a nice variety with a last minute addition.
Let’s take a look!
Up first, my chocolate advent calendar…
I got out my Harry Potter pocket advent calendar, this one you fill yourself.
I got me and my husband chocolate coins for each day.
It has 24 pockets, so I’ve put extra in for the 25th as I like yo have one for Christmas morning too.
Next up, I have my beautiful Pop up Harry Potter advent calendar. I bought this either last year or two years ago (I can’t remember)
It is so cool – and it’s great that you can refuse it!
I love the little decorations you get each day, to hang on the tree!
My final advent calendar is a F.R.I.E.N.D.S themed one. This was an unexpected one, but I couldn’t resist it. A bonus was that it was in a sale at my local bookshop, so it was a bargain.
This one comes with cool little F.R.I.E.N.D.S themed goodies such as decorations, bookmarks, puzzles (& I’m not sure what else yet!)
It’s fun to have a few different ones to open each morning!
It’s that time of year again, yep – you guessed it… Blogmas time 🎄
It’s time to get festive and enjoy this wonderful spirit filled season.
And what better way than with 25 festive blog posts, throughout December!?!
What is Blogmas?
For each of the 25 days of advent, from December the First, leading up to Christmas Day, you post a festive themed blog post! This can be anything that you like, as long as the theme is Christmas!
What should I expect?
I do a variety of festive blog posts ranging from foodie recipes, my ‘favourites’, Christmas parties/events that I go to, Christmas traditions, decorations, and much more!
It’s a lot of festive fun and a great way to indulge in the festive season, picking up some ideas, tips, and tricks along the way.
Today is World Book Day. I mean everyday is Book Day for me haha.
As I work in a Primary School Setting I do love this Day simply for sharing stories and excitement around books.
Plus, it’s good fun to make a costume and dress up. My favourite part is reading to the children throughout the day though.
What could you do this World Book Day?
Get crafty and make a bookmark for you and or the kids.
Just enjoy a bit of quiet reading time with a new book or a favourite of yours…
Read to the kids! This is my favourite part of world book day at work ❤️📚
Try something new? A new type of book, a new genre. I have recently been enjoying the Heartstopper Graphic Novels which is not a book format that I usually read.
Read your favourite book ♡
Unfortunately I won’t have time today but, going to a local bookshop and treating yourself to a new book would also be an awesome way to spend it too. Especially if the kids have their book token too!
This year I have reused my Stick Man costume as I put alot of effort into making this last year so I thought I would get one more year out of it!
Whatever you do, I hope you have been able to enjoy a book and share that joy with somebody…theres nothing better ♡
Well I have tried my very best, and most days thanks to my relatively active job, have done my 11,00 step goal.
I do drink a lot of water but keeping it as consistent as possible is key going forward.
What else? …
I think I have taken more photos with people this year and I was also really chuffed that I managed to keep up with my ‘1 second of the day’ video diary. 365 days of a second clip, all mashed together to represent my 2022. Its pretty cool
What’s next?
Now the next point is a great example of why going back to a post is useful (especially one of this nature) if I had I would have remembered my ’10 minutes of reading every day’, this might have spurred me on to read more this year.
10 pages is a manageable goal, so I will endeavour to take this forward (and hopefully be more successful) this year.
I think I will also instate a ‘reading time’ between 9-10pm in order to give myself some quiet, alone time and some much needed therapy in the form of a good novel (or 60)
Spending less time on my phone is 100% something I really want to work on (Tik Tok has a lot to answer!!) It’s not great, it’s so bad for accentuating my already distracted nature, and staring at my phone never makes my head and or eyes feel good either.
I also haven’t started wiring a book… maybe 2023 will be that Year, who knows!
Me and my husband Tim don’t really buy meat anymore on our weekly food shop. We chose ans cook lots of veggie alternatives and are also making a conscious effort with regard to dairy free products and better recycling practises and minimilising food wastage. I am actually really pleased with how well we have done this and how far we have come! I honestly never thought I would actually be able to do this beyond the odd ‘meat free Monday’.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am not turning full veggie and I usually eat meat if we go out or order in, but we have made a lot of great changes to our diets.
I have definitely managed to sleep a bit earlier some nights but this is very much a big thing that I need to work on and probably will be a constant battle for me. I don’t sleep ‘well’ alot of the time but I can sleep well so improving this with some of the above and a better routine may help.
The final one is ‘Pass my driving test’ which I am chuffed to say I did, last year. This is one of my best achievements and I am so happy I don’t have to do driving lessons anymore. It wasn’t easy but it was so worth it in the end.
How did you get on with any of your ‘goals’ or ‘resolutions’ from last year?
Being the self professed Harry Potter fan that I am, I thought I would share with you guys the Harry Potter inspired gifts that I got for Christmas.
So, lets take a look!
BOOKS!
I got three books this year. I got the illustrated version of the fifth Harry Potter book ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’. I have the others so this is a great (and a very beautiful) addition to the collection.
I also got a copy of ‘Fantastic Beasts and where to find them’ the original screenplay and the Autobiography of Tom Felton who played Draco Malfoy in the series, its called ‘Beyond the wand.’ I’m really looking forward to reading it.
I got a Harry Potter Lego set – this one is from the Chamber of Secrets film. This scene is when they are brewing the polyjuice potion and Hermione turns into a cat. This has some cool features like the changing characters and the limited edition 20th Anniversary gold Harry Potter minifigure.
I also got this ‘DIY Knight Bus Doorstop Kit’ I have no idea how I am going to make this haha but I will give it a go. I have a friend who is really good at knitting things so I may have to ask her for help.
I got this cute soup bowl from my Mum and Dad. It’s a lovely dark, midnight blue colour and is in the shape of a cauldron!
One of my friends got me this Harry Potter puzzle. The design is really nice and it incorporates all of the films, which is really cool.
I also got this really cool sock & mug set 😃
The final thing I got was this cosy Harry Potter throw. I can’t wait to snuggle up with this.
Traditions are one of my favourite parts of Christmas and so I thought for my penultimate Blogmas post I would share some of ours.
December
Christmas Rock N Roll Panto, this is on every Christmas at our local Theatre. Me and Tim go every December.
Mince Pie taste testing, because how else will we know which ones are best?!? It’s a public service really.
Put up the Christmas decs, and LOTS of them. Nothing makes you feel more Christmassy!!
Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve boxes, for my Nephews and Niece. I make these throughout December and deliver them on Christmas eve for them to enjoy.
Making festive treats, usually for our Christmas day dessert. This uwat I made a Lindt Chocolate Cheesecake for Christmas Day and the Platinum Jubilee Lemon and Amaretto trifle for Boxing day (it was a hit in the summer!)
A Christmas Byron. Me, my twin sister and our friend Demi go out for lunch or dinner together at Byron. No idea how this started but we’ve done it for at least 5/6 years now.
Watching ‘The Snowman’. I always watched this on Christmas eve as a kid so I carry it on now! I usually watch it before I go to bed.
Going to look at the Christmas lights. We drive around our local town and have a look at all of the awesome lights people have put up on their houses. This is one of my favourite traditions.
Christmas Day
Opening up our stockings first thing. I still have the same sack that I had as a child and I love having that to open first thing, good old Santa 🎅🏻
Going to Mum and Dads in the morning. It would be so weird not to!! I’ve only ever either woken up there (literally the same house) or gone there first thing on Christmas morning, my whole life
Christmas lunch. THE. BEST. MEAL. OF. THE YEAR. My father in law makes an amazing roast each year too do I can’t wait.
Christmas games, one of my absolute favourite parts of Christmas. Having fun together- it doesn’t get better than that. I very luckily married into a family that probably loves games even more than my family do – winner!
Photos from Christmas 2021
Other:
A Christmas walk. When we do our Christmas with Tim’s Mum we always go for a lovely wintery walk somewhere. It’s so nice and we always discover so many hidden gems near us that we would probably never visit.
So, I obviously did a post at the beginning of Blogmas showcasing some of our decorations, our tree and some of our tree decorations…well…
… I may have bought some more when I went into town this week!
I thought I would share them with you as they are a different theme to our other more traditional decorations.
In our hallway/entrance room we usually have a sort of winter vibe, but this year I could only find a few bits amongst our decs ( I have no idea what’s happened to the other stuff) so I thought I would add some more stuff to make it a bit better.
One of the things I took inspo from is the escape room we did a few weeks ago… random I know, but they had baubles on the ceiling… and they looked so cool, so I took the idea and fitted it into the winter theme…
I went into Wilko this week and they had a big pack of giant baubles in whites, silvers and light blue… perfect for a winter theme… and half price!
I added white lights which go along the wall. We have had these up before but they go really well with the theme in this room as all the other lights we have are warm lights.
And of course tinsel! Light blue, silver and white.
Also from Wilko I got some hanging snowflake garlands…. these are white and silver and look very nice hanging in the doorway to the lounge.
I also grabbed a little fake Mistletoe hanging decoration as it looked cute 😗 and went well with everything else (white berries & glitter!!)
And my little winter friends to top it all off. They always go perfectly in here, but even more so this year.
❄️ What do you think? ❄️
What is your favourite colour scheme for Christmas?
Every year I make Christmas eve boxes for my two nephews (who are brothers) and my niece. They arrived aged between 5 – 8 so still nice and easy to cater for this year.
So, I thought I would share with you the sorts of things that I have got to put into their boxes this year.
Let’s take a look!
We started off with Colouring/Colour by number/puzzle books…
Followed by some fun Christmas craft activities…
This year I go Christmas Scratch art, Christmas characters and a paint your own Santa ornament.
These ranged from £1 – £2 in Wilko so super affordable.
I also added in some funny little novelty ‘Elf Racers’ for them to play with, as well as some tasty treats including chocolate coins (Classic!) and a hot chocolate bomb.
Finally, I added a Christmassy book to each box…
The Works do 3 books for £5 which is awesome when there are three little ones to buy for haha!
Lots of fun and treats to keep them occupied during Christmas eve and the following days.
And a great way to get into the festive spirit and make Christmas eve special.
Roseanne Byford 