Every year since they were born I have created Christmas Eve boxes for my nephews and niece, and its one of my favourite traditions 😊
It’s just a little christmassy box of goodies to enjoy on the eve of Christmas and I’ve included different things over the years!
Here’s what I will be including this year for KS2 aged children (why do they grow up so quickly 😭) its super fun getting things you know they’ll like.
I have included Prices and shops where possible.
Let’s take a look!
Giant Chocolate Coins – Flying Tiger Magic Snow, Build your own snowman – The Works £1.50Wall climbing Grinch – The Works £3Capybara Bath Bombs- Primark £1.30Gonk teddy – The Works £2Make your own Reindeer hat – The Works £2Christmas Bouncy Putty – The Works £2
Hopefully they’ll enjoy these fun little bits and bob’s.
I love Christmas lights so when my mother in law invited us along to our local light trail with herself and some of her friends, how could we say no!
And it was brilliant.
We actually went to this display last year for its inaugural year but it was in a different park in my hometown and it was very expensive. This year the trail was set up in a different park and the layout of the park worked much better for this event. It had a more natural trail with paths as apposed to last year when the lights were in big open areas, which wasn’t quite as effective. They have also made it much more affordable which is great!
There were loads more lights, lovely atmospheric music and smoke to add to the magical vibe. There was also a nice little food court in the middle which served delicious hot chocolates. My mint one was so yummy I had two 😋 🤣
I also liked that you could go around the trail more than once, so we did!
The only annoying thing was the torrential rain haha – not ideal! But it was so wet you kinda just had to get on with it by the end haha. It was still a lovely, festive evening.
So, without further ado, let’s take a look at the trail!
Pumpkin Picking with my sister and my niece.Halloween ((Bounce)) class – Byford Bats 🦇Halloweem film day, snacks & chilling out. Pumpking painting 🎃Crafty Bats 🦇 Learning about Bats and creating a bat metal embossed decoration.Halloween Light Trail ✨️Pumpkin Picking with the fam 🎃Decorating for Halloween 🎃 Halloween nails 💅🏻 👻🎃🖤🧡Making my bat lego 🦇Colchester Zoo trail of terror with Sarah & Tim 😱Watching Scary movies 🎬
Last weekend I attended the inaugural Ipswich Book Festival, Chapter One…here’s how it went…
1st Stop – 12pm Talk Author ‘Tim Sullivan’
‘ The Bookseller’
This was a brilliant and funny talk from Tim Sullivan, the author of the George Cross Mystery novels. It was so interesting to hear about the writing process, where he gets his ideas from and to hear his passion for the brilliant character of George Cross. George is great, and I’m glad I managed to pick up the latest in the series (signed 😃) as well as a few that I haven’t read yet.
The Cross novels are so enjoyable to read, and the subject of Neurodivergance is well researched and beautifully represented in these exciting and gripping novels.
Tim was very funny and witty, and the team interviewing were great, so it made for a really enjoyable talk.
2nd Stop – Lunch & a spot of reading 📚
My current Book Club read 📚
Stop 3 – Time for a bit of book browsing/shopping
I had to pop into one of my favourite shops in Ipswich, and our only independent book shop,’Dial Lane Books’, on Dial Lane.
I also popped into Waterstones to use a book voucher that I conveniently found that morning. I love their buy one get one half price deal!
Stop 4 – 4pm Talk Author Wendy Holden
‘The Teacher of Auschwitz’
This talk was beautifully moving, and it was so inspiring to hear their brave stories.
In the current world, it was wonderful to hear some courageous and self less stories about humans helping each other and putting others before themselves, even in the most unthinkable situations and conditions. These are stories that now more than ever need to be heard.
Stop 5 – 4.45pm Talk John Wark and Mark Prentice
‘He’s here, he’s there’
As a lifelong Ipswich town fan, I thoroughly enjoyed John Warks talk to round off a brilliant day.
Every Ipswich town fan knows who the legend John Wark is, but I have to admit I had no idea just how much of a mark he has made on the world of football, the stats and accolades are insane, awards and lists with some of the world’s most famous footballers – formidable in Europe and the highest leagues of football in his day, he really helped put little old Ipswich Town on the map.
It was a great way to end a fantastic day, and I for one cannot wait until next years festival.
Next year, the event is proposed for the first weekend of October 2026!
So, I had an idea to document some more memories on my blog. I used to do a lot more of these sort of posts before I started posting more book/reading content, and when I had more time haha, life seems to be busy these days!
Here is my third quarterly memories update to capture 2025, we are three quarters of the way through the year!!
These are the third three months of the twelve of 2025!
Let’s take a look.
July
This summer was a lot of fun! It was the first one I had properly had off (excluding 2020) what made it even better was that my husband also had it off. We had lots of adventures.
At the end of July we went to Disneyland Paris together. We last visited in 2019 and this is our second visit to the most magical place on earth. Me and my husband went with my twin sister, her husband and my two nephews. We went on the ferry this time which was fun.
It was such a fun, magical (as always) trip ✨️
We stayed at the Disney Santa Fe hotel this time round and it was so cool. Me and my Nephews watched ‘Cars’ the weekend before in preparation and it did not disappoint. Disney themeing is always on point.
Our room was in the Mater section which was awesome as he was our favourite.
We had a brilliant time, we went on loads of rides, new and classic, saw some shows including ‘The Lion King, spirit of the pride lands’ and the Pixar show too. The Disney dining was delicious and such great value as always, we tried some new places too. The new Avengers area was cool.
It was really cool that now my nephews are older they can go on more rides too.
August
We did lots of fun things in July/August including celebrating birthdays, games nights with family, Hare hunting round our hometown which is always a fun activity, especially with my niece and nephews. We also went for a trip to the seaside, lots of trips to the cinema, went to see a show with my Uni friend in London, visited Colchester Zoo and had an amazing Sun Bear experience – this was one of my highlights. I also had mt leaving meal as I left one of my jobs that I’d been at for 14 years!! (Hence the summer off, woohoo)
One of the best bits about August was that me and my husband went on an impromptu European train holiday for 5ish days. This was so fun and such a different trip to ones we have done before. We travelled on the eurostar, this was my first time, and then used trains in between places to visit Paris, Ghent, Belgium, Pairi Daiza, Rotterdam and Brussels.
This was so much fun. We just had a rucksack each and that was all.
It was so cool to visit so many different places! Paris was lovely and I would definitely go back in a cooler month!! Its was 35° 🥵 it was lovely to see the sights though, including the Effiel tower of course.
Ghent was the biggest suprise for me, it was such a beautiful and unique city that I would highly recommend. We had our first Waffle here, which was delicious. We also did a boat tour of the canal and a Medieval walking tour, which was fascinating – a great way to learn about the city. We also got a great recommendation from our tour guide for the best frites and flemish stew – a food highlight of the trip.
The architecture was amazing and it was so picturesque.
The pictures below are from our favourite part of the trip – Pairi Daiza in Belgium.
The open bat enclosure was one of my favourite parts. I love bats and to see them flying around me was amazing. These fruit bats were so cute.
This place was absolutely incredible, I can’t put into words how amazing it truly was to see with your own eyes. I heard about it on a tv show at work and it was beyond anything you could imagine. It is one of the largest zoos in Europe and is split up into areas for each continent. The variety of animals and the beautiful enclosure they have are incredible. We were there for a whole day and spent it seeing it all. It was the best day of our 2025.
The picture below shows how happy we were. It is such an incredible, beautiful place that you can’t really describe, you need to experience it.
Rotterdam was an interesting city but probably my least favourite of the trip, as it was quite plain compared to the other places we had been. We went to a cool little ‘Miniworld’ that had tiny models of the city of Rotterdam. This was really cool and it was so interesting to look around. It also had a cool day/night feature so the lights slowly dimed when it was night and the lights in the streets/buildings etc would come on, so you were able to see it at day time and night time, two incredibly different perspectives. Very cool.
We also went to a yummy indoor food market which was amazing. We tried lots of yummy things including a authentic Stroopwafel. The one filled with Nutella was my favourite.
We went home on the eurostar from Brussels so our final day was spent there. We had a tour of a Belgium chocolate museum with lots of free samples and a live demo of how they make authentic Pralines. After a little lunch of some Frites we got on our bus tour for the rest of the day, we stayed on the open top bus, enjoying the sunshine and looking at the sights. This was a good way of seeing the sights if you only have a day like we did. One last waffle and then we headed to the Eurostar.
A truly incredible adventure that we won’t ever forget.
September
September was a bit back to normal for us! My husband started his new job and I started a new term at school.
Some things that we did include more birthdays, my Mum and my nephew! We watched more football, kept up with the gym and hung out with friends.
We also went to the ‘Farewell to the Hares’
As I mentioned above, we had the Hare hunting in our local town throughout the summer and this event at the end of the trail means you can go and see them all in one place. We all go together as a family to this. Its nice to see them all together and spot ones you missed.
This year’s ‘Holiblog’ post (holiday blog post for those who are new here) is a bit of a different one as we booked an impromptu train trip around Europe (well, a small part of Europe)
We went for a 5 day trip getting to and from using the Eurostar, and then local trains in-between. So, with just a rucksack, each we set off (at 4.30 am in the morning 😭)
Here’s how it went…
Paris, France
A brilliant first day of our little European adventure!
Our first stop was Paris 🇫🇷
We found some delicious pizza 🤣🍕 and we walked to the Effiel tower (which really is quite massive) very cool.
A highlight was the River Seine boat sightseeing tour. 🏞⛴️
It’s been 33° so it was a welcome shelter/rest from the sun, and we were able to see lots of the sights of Paris that we wanted to. 🌞
Traditional pastries acquired ready for tomorrow mornings early train to our next destination 🥐
Pairi Daiza, Cambron Casteau
Today was amazing. 🇧🇪
If you ever in Brussels you’ve got to visit ‘Pairi Daiza, Kingdom of Animals’
It’s so much more amazing that I could ever have imagined – what a beautiful place with some amazing animals, I’ve never been anywhere like it.
The themeing of each continent area was spot on, and we saw animals we had never seen before absolutely thriving in the most amazing exhibits.
It’s been a full-on, hot day, and my feet ache a lot (10 hours there and 30,000 steps) but boy, did we enjoy ourselves – we didn’t want to leave!!
Ps – the bats were awesome 🦇
Europe Day Two- done ✔️ 🇧🇪
Ghent, Belgium
Today, we started off with breakfast in Brussels before we headed to today’s stop – Ghent. 🇧🇪
I’d never heard of it before we booked this trip, but I am so glad we came. This place is so lovely to walk around. The architecture is beautiful, and it’s so quaint with a surprisingly contrasting but infectious bustling night life. 🚤 The canals are really pretty, and as well as wandering around ourselves during the day and at night, we also enjoyed a canal boat tour and a Medieval walking tour.
The local culinary delights, including Leige waffles 🧇 DELICIOUS frites, topped with traditional blemish stew, gravy & mayonnaise, and Belgium chocolate of course.
Another brilliant day! Stop no 3, done ✔️
#Ghent #Belgium #Europe2025
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Day Four was Rotterdam! 🇳🇱
We started off the day having breakfast in Ghent before heading to our next stop.
We chose this (instead of Amsterdam) as it was suggested to be quite a contrast to Ghent, and that it was. We visited ‘Mini World’, which was really cool, and it was actually very helpful when spotting interesting landmarks around Rotterdam afterwards. The lighting at Mini World was very impressive i. Particular. We also had a walk around the plaza.
The highlight was the food market hall – there was so much to see and try. We had our first traditional Stroopwafel, which was delicious, as well as trying some other yummy cusines too.
We then headed to the harbour to have a look at the views, finished off the evening by chilling in our hotel room after a few very busy days!
Last stop today!
Brussels, Belgium
Our last day was Brussels 🇧🇪
We never got to look around Brussels when we stayed the other day as it was just the closest place to ‘Pairi Daiza’.
So, here we are! Doing it properly this time (plus, you can get the Eurostar from Brussels so win, win)
We started off by getting a train to the other Brussels station, Centrale, which funnily enough was much more in the centre of Brussels than Midi. It was also a 6 minute walk from our first stop – The Choco Story Chocolate Museum 🍫 it had to be done.
It was really interesting and I very much enjoyed the samples along the way, as well as a chocolatier demonstrating how they make traditional Belgium Pralines which were first made in Brussels (we got to eat those too! Yum)
After that, we grabbed a quick lunch of Frites & Mayo 🍟 in the sunshine 🌞
In order to see as much of Brussels as we could in our short time there, we got tickets for a hop on, hop off tour bus of the city. (Although we just stayed on it for 2 hours to see the full tour) It was a beautiful blue sky, sunny day and we enjoyed our little tour of the city on the open top bus 🚌 we saw lots of cool sights, street art and the Headquarters of the EU 🇪🇺.
And just to round off the day before we headed to the Eurostar, we grabbed some final waffles 🧇 We tried a savoury ham and cheese one which was very nice and a triple chocolate drizzled one. Belgium chocolate really is delightful
16 trains later (for the whole trip), and we’re back home! All in all, it was a success! And a very fun, jam-packed 5 days – we’ve done many steps, seen many things, visited many new places, and consumed many waffles! Europe 2025, you were a blast!
(& living out of a backpack really isn’t that bad!)
Roseanne Byford 