Category: Life

Blogmas Day Twenty Five: IT’S CHRISTMASSSSS 🎁

Hi guys 👋🏼

So it’s finally here – Christmas Day!!

I hope you have a lovely day whatever you do.

I saw this idea online, so here is my ‘ideal Christmas day’

My ideal Christmas Day ❤️

6.00am – Open Stocking

8am Onwards – Get ready, prepare the breakfast pastrys

9am – Open Presents together at our home

10am onwards – Go and visit my Mum and Dad

11.30 onwards – Christmas Lunch at my father in laws

1pm – Christmas Dinner

2pm Onwards – Presents and relaxing

3pm – Kings Speech

4/5pm onwards – Games/Snacks/Cheeseboard

6pm – Seeing more of my Family in the evening, more present opening.

7pm – Buffet Tea

8pm – More Games and Christmas TV.

I hope you enjoyed your Christmas Day.

That’s it for Blogmas 2022! Thanks for all the support, likes and shares of my posts.

And to those who find it difficult at this time of year – I am thinking of you too and hoping that 2024 brings you health and happiness.

Until Next Time,

Roseanne 🙂

by Categories: Celebrations, christmas, Life, UncategorizedTags: Leave a comment

Blogmas Day Twenty Four: Christmas Traditions ✨️

Hi guys 👋🏼

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.

What are your Christmas traditions?

Until Next Time,

Roseanne 🙂

IT’S CHRISTMAS DAY TOMORROW!!

by Categories: Celebrations, christmas, food, LifeTags: Leave a comment

Blogmas Day Twenty Two: More Christmas decorating…❄️

Hi guys 👋🏼

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?

Until Next Time,

Roseanne 🙂

Only 3 days to go!!! Ahhh so close now.

by Categories: Celebrations, christmas, home decor, Life, UncategorizedTags: Leave a comment

Blogmas Day Twenty One: Christmas Hampers 🎁

Hi guys 👋🏼

So another nice little DIY Christmas gift I like to out together are Christmas hampers.

Now of course you can theme them however you like, depending on who they are for, but the ones that I usually do are foodie hampers.

Lets have a look!

I like to go for a good mix of different things:

  • Typical seasonal items such as Pannetone, Christmas pudding, mince pies etc
  • New Christmas/festive themed bits that are out that particular year, such as new flavours of crisps, nuts, different cakes.
  • Specific things that you know they like eg a chocolate orange, certain chocolate, fave sweets etc

And I usually do a mixture of both sweet and savoury.

I start picking up bits for these in late November, early December so that when I visit different shops you get a good variety and choice, and you often find different bits depending on where you go.

Most of the stuff that I pick up for these hampers is the sort of thing that has a long life but I am always sure to check as sometimes I get carried away and then remember I need to be careful or the things will be out of date before they’ve received it 😅

I think these hampers make such a nice little gift, with lots of little suprised and interesting bits to look through and taste.

They are one of my favourite bits to out together! I often find it hard to stop once I start buying the bits for them as there are alot of delicious treats out there.

Have you made Hampers before? What sort of hampers do you like?

Until Next Time,

Roseanne 🙂

4 days to go!

by Categories: christmas, food, Life, UncategorizedTags: Leave a comment

Blogmas Day Twenty: Christmas Eve Boxes 📦 ♥️

Hi guys 👋🏼

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.

Until Next Time,

Roseanne 🙂

5 days until Christmas!

by Categories: books, Celebrations, christmas, Life, UncategorizedTags: Leave a comment

Blogmas Day Nineteen: Winter Photography 📸 ❄️

Hi guys 👋🏼

Winter is one of my favourite seasons and at its frostiest it is the most beautiful.

Here are some photos that my family and friends have allowed me to share, that they have taken, over the course of December.

❄️❄️❄️

📸 Carol Rumsey
📸 Carol Rumsey
📸 Carol Rumsey
📸 Carol Rumsey
📸 Carol Rumsey
📸 Carol Rumsey
📸 Sarah Parker
📸 Sarah Parker
📸 Sarah Parker
📸 Sarah Parker
📸 Steph Wiley
📸 Steph Wiey
📸 Wes Stankiewicz
📸 Demi Abbott
📸 Neil Gillingham
📸 Neil Gillingham
📸 Roseanne Byford
📸 Roseanne Byford
📸 Roseanne Byford
📸 Roseanne Byford
by Categories: christmas, Life, UncategorizedTags: Leave a comment

Blogmas Day Eighteen: Our final book club meeting of 2022 📚

Hi guys 👋🏼

So on Thursday (15th Dec) we had our final book club meeting of 2022.

It was a smaller affair than usual as lots of the usual group were ill 🤒

The four of us carried on and I chaired the meeting on Sarah’s behalf.

Keepin’ it festive 🎄

We enjoyed discussing Novembers book… ‘The Girls Who Disappeared by Claire Douglas’

I thoroughly enjoyed this boom and it is up there with one of my favourites from the year.

It’s a Thriller about Olivia Rutherford and her friends who are involved in a car accident and when she wakes up they have disappeared and are still missing 20 years later.

I really enjoyed the twists, turns and audible gasps that escaped me as the story started to unfold. It was a very enjoyable and easy read and with lovely short chapters it took me just under two days to read.

I would give it ☆☆☆☆☆ out of 5!

‘The Christmas Murder Game’ by Alexandra Benedict has been chosen as our December Christmas read.

It’s not your usual festive fair but I am looking forward to this as its different to all of the ‘domestic fiction’ easy reader, festive books that I have to read over the next few weeks and January.

What festive books are you currently reading ?

Until Next Time,

Roseanne 🙂

ONE WEEK UNTIL CHRISTMAS!!

by Categories: books, christmas, Life, UncategorizedTags: Leave a comment

Blogmas Day Seventeen: The ultimate hot chocolate 🍫

Hi guys 👋🏼

At Christmas time one of my favourite drinks to have is hot chocolate. Me ans my twin sister were visiting London this weekend so we thought we would try out the ultimate hot chocolate that London has to offer.

The cafe is called ‘Italian Bear Chocolate’ and they are a chocolate lovers heaven.

You cam choose your flavour of hot chocolate from milk, white or dark. We both went for milk chocolate. We also both went for a small (which was more than enough!!) As we wanted to try the chocolate cake.

We added ‘triple chocolate’ to both our hot chocolate and the cake, which is the drizzle you can see cascading down the side of the mug and the cake.

It was so rich, thick and decadent. It starts off like normal hot chocolate but definitely gets thicker as you get to the end. The triple chocolate drizzle is amazing too. You can taste to good quality of each type of chocolate.

This is the cake that we got to share. This was decadence with a capital D. We had to take at least half home with us. The chocolate ganache and fudgey filling were amazing.

It was so good.

What’s your favourite festive beverage?

Until Next Time,

Roseanne 🙂

8 days until Christmas

by Categories: Celebrations, christmas, food, LifeTags: Leave a comment

Blogmas Day Fifteen: A christmas booklover diy gift 📚

Hi guys 👋🏼

So this week we are having our last Book Club meeting before Christmas and the New Year, and I saw a really cute idea online that I thought was perfect to make everyone.

They are book baubles!

So I bought some clear baubles on Amazon, I then set about printing, cutting (lots of cutting) and laminating the tiny pictures of all of the books that we have read at Book Club this year.

I did them double sided so that they looked good inside the bauble from all angles. This did take a little while but I made them in an evening so it isn’t as time consuming as it looks.

These would make a great present for a book lover friend. If you know what they have read this year or maybe just make one with their favourite books in.

They are relatively easy and super effective.

I finished them off by writing ‘2022’ in a silver pen and adding a red ribbon to hang them up.

I know not everyone has a laminater but they looked really effective this way and I was really pleased with the finish.

I can’t wait to pop mine on my tree – what a great year for book club books it has been.

What have you read this year?

Until Next Time,

Roseanne 🙂

10 DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS!!!

by Categories: books, Celebrations, christmas, craft, LifeTags: Leave a comment