Christmas Day!!!

It's Christmas Day - yippee! It doesn't feel much like Christmas, for I woke to an empty house this morning, rather than one full of family and excitement. Tim is working at the hospital until 3pm, so I got up, ate my Christmas breakfast treat (a wheat-free bagel) and watched Heidi on tv - oh how I love the book, and the film was quite magnificent too.

The phone has been busy for the past hour, calling family to wish them a Merry Christmas, and the kettle is boiling to make me a nice hot drink to enjoy whilst preparing the Christmas dinner - duck this year. Our presents are peeping out from under the tree and I cannot wait for Tim to get home so that the festivities can start properly. It will be a short day, as he is due back at work at 7am tomorrow morning, but it will be ours to spend together. Christmas Day has become a very quiet day for us, closing ourselves of from the world to just enjoy each other's company. I know that our future Christmasses will be full of family and friends, so I do try to enjoy this time as best I can, even though they seem quite small at times... after all Christmas is about loved ones and who do I love more than my darling?

My parents will be arriving tomorrow morning for another quiet get-together, which I am ever so excited about, and who knows, by this time next year we may be surrounded by family on the big day itself... so much to hope for the future and so many memories to think back upon from Christmasses past... but for today I am focussing just on the here and now, for I have my loved one coming home to spend the most special day of the year with me. I do hope you have your special ones close to you too, today.

Have a wonderful Christmas, one and all. Thank you for popping by this blog over the past month, I hope to see you all in the very near future. But for now, be merry and glad and enjoy the magic of Christmas.

xx

Christmas Eve is here at last!

I do hope you have been good and will be going to bed early tonight in hopes that Santa will visit you with lots of gifts. I cannot believe it is Christmas Eve, a day full of magic and wonder, excitement and anticipation... so much to wait for and look forward to!

Christmas officially started for me at 2pm today when the doors of the tourist office closed and I left work. Carols were playing on the radio on the way home, and a man from Norad came on the air to explain how they "track" Santa's progress, just minutes after I'd been telling Tim about it and how we should log on to see how Santa is doing on this, his busy night! Do pop by if you have time and see what is going on - just click on the link above!

Take care, my dear readers, thank you for stopping by this month and enjoying it with me - don't forget there will be one last poem posted tomorrow! And please don't think the fun is all over once Christmas Day has been and gone... just like the joy and magic of Christmas can be held in your heart throughout the year, I hope to continue the joy that this series of poems has brought to me and you by posting far more regularly, so do check in every once in a while.

For now though I shall leave you to snuggle up warm, leave out a little treat or two for Santa and his reindeer and curl up in bed with dreams of what tomorrow may bring, whatever your plans are!

Merry Christmas xx

December 23rd

And this is the second of Tim's videos (scroll down to the previous post for his first one!) Again, I encourage you to leave a comment for Tim to thank him for helping me bring the past two days' poems to you despite my feeling rough with a cold!

We are now celebrating "Christmas Eve Eve" and very excited we are about it too. The last bits of food have been bought, I have a half day left and although Tim is working both Christmas Day and Boxing Day we still have plans to make them extra special for the two of us, and our film watching has been planned. We watched Star Wars: A New Hope today, ready to watch the "snowy" second film on Christmas Day (we couldn't watch Star Wars tomorrow night as that is reserved for The Wizard of Oz, of course!) The last few gifts are wrapped and ready to be taken by Santa for delivery, the last few cards to be distributed will go tomorrow and we are all set for the Big Day - yay, it has come at last!

Send me (and all those around me at work who are ill with colds) good thoughts to have a runny/stuffy-nosed-free Christmas Day. And also spare a thought for all those people who will already be queueing up ready for the Service at King's College Chapel tomorrow... yes, some people do go so early, although most don't venture out until tomorrow to be fair!! Even so, you need to be in the queue by 9am to hope to get in from 1.30pm ready for the 3pm start... not fun on a cold, winter's day, especially seeing as how cold it has been of late. But of course, how magical if you do manage it... in fact today I was talking to a girl from Amsterdam who used to watch it on tv as a child and said that it signalled the start of Christmas for her, so she was desperate to be there in person and was aiming to be in the queue by 7am! Personally I can think of warmer ways to spend Christmas Eve, but I can see the charm of being there for the traditional Festival of Nine Lessons!

December 21st

Today's post is rather late on account of it being the Winter Solstice. It seems so long ago that Tim and I decided we'd have this day off to celebrate, especially as we will only have half of Christmas Day together. We started the day with a lazy morning (despite being rudely awoken at 5.30am by his alarm, which he had forgotten to turn off). We had a scrumptious breakfast of bacon, eggs and beans on toast, followed by the watching of It's a Wonderful Life whilst sitting by an open fire.

I may have mentioned having watched this film already this year, but it is one of my all-time favourite films and I could watch it over and over again (although I had to fast-forward the part where Uncle Billy lost the money as Tim couldn't cope with that part - it really is a sad part and one where I really want to shout at Mr. Potter and all those men like him in our world, so I can understand why he didn't want to watch that part!) Anyway, I have managed to watch all but 3 of my Christmas favourites - The Bishop's Wife, The Polar Express and The Wizard of Oz... the latter has to be watched on Christmas Eve, as explained in this previous post, and The Polar Express has to be watched before Christmas Eve but not too far in advance, but the Bishop's Wife may have to wait until one of the days after Christmas... isn't it funny how we have these habits and traditions which may seem so strange to others but make perfect sense to us. I have to say though, I haven't done too badly to say I have watched nearly all my Christmas favs, some of them more than once this year *ahem*

The rest of our afternoon was spent making mince pies, adding dried fruit and crushed nuts to make the mincemeat spread even further... we then celebrated the Winter Solstice by burning our wishes for the coming year on the fire, taking the lit advent candle out into the snowy garden and eating a mince pie fresh out the oven, before scurrying back inside to the warmth of the fire. It is only just dying down after a day of burning happily for us. The rest of this evening is going to be spent watching Gremlins a film that terrified me beyond words as a child but which amuses me now - it is the closest thing to a Christmas film I can get Tim to watch as he claims one film a day is his quota. We have this running argument that I watch far more of his favourite films and tv shows than he does mine (his argument being he has watched films like Ladies in Lavender and that my films are "girly" whereas his films are ones would enjoy, seen as though I like sci-fi and adventure... hmmm seems to me watching Aliens was a little beyond what I would like to watch, but he still refused to watch that little girl's all-time favourite Dirty Dancing last night, so I think I have a way to go yet in twisting his arm! We have a deal though this year... if I can watch my favourite films he can watch the Star Wars Trilogy over Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day - sound fair to you? It does to me...

December 19th

Well, the snow is still here and thanks to my unexpected "snow day" yesterday we got ahead in preparing for today's family party. The potatoes are ready to be loaded, the peanut butter cups are all done (though if any are left by the time the party comes is another matter!), and the nuts are ready to be spiced. We still have a lot to do, as most of the food needs to be prepared just a few hours in advance of the party - but we are well on our way!

We also got to take some lovely snowy pictures around the village yesterday - perhaps we have found next year's Christmas card already, you never know! We're busy here at number 22 preparing for the next week or two - everything is decorated but the last few bits of food need to be bought for Christmas Day, our best clothes need to be washed and ironed so we're at our best, and there are still a few Christmas favourites to be watched on tv. But all in all we are feeling pretty good about this year, as we are more prepared than usual, I hope you have everything sorted now too, so you can enjoy this last week's run up to the Big Day!

xx

December 16th

One of the things I love most about Christmas are the memories we make and the traditions we create for ourselves. I can remember things from nearly every single Christmas, like when my mum forgot she had puts some eggs on to boil and they exploded in the kitchen, or the time I went to church and sang in the choir and saw all the little kids playing on their new bikes out in the street on the way, or the year I only thought to write to Santa on Christmas Eve so he didn't have time to get what I asked for, and left me a note promising to bring it next year, or even the time I had the flu... believe it or not, despite it being my worst Christmas ever (I went to bed on Christmas Eve feeling fine and then couldn't bear the sight or smell of food or any light for the whole of Christmas Day), I still remember things like my mum sharing her maltesers with me in an attempt to get me to eat anything! There's always a memory to be had, even in the worst of times!

And the traditions... one year my parents were watching the film Cliffhanger and, being the empathic wuss that I am, I had to go out after the lady fell off the rope (that still makes me shudder). Lucky for me, the Wizard of Oz was playing on another channel and I watched that. The year after it was shown again and from that moment I have had to watch this film every Christmas Eve (usually at 9pm, because that means it finishes in perfect time for me to go to bed!) And then there is good old Jim Reeves... my dad loves Jim Reeves and Christmas morning, unwrapping our presents would not be the same without his crooning, and I have some songs ready on Spotify (my new best friend) ready for Christmas Day. And Christmas morning would not be the same without something special for breakfast... unfortunately this year Tim is working Christmas morning, so I won't see him until the afternoon when, I hope, I will greet him with a festive feast to fill us to bursting... this will be our third Christmas together, but only our second living together, so we have yet to create any firm traditions of our own, but I know that with every year we spend together these will come.

So tell me, what memories and traditions do you have for Christmas?

December 15th

A little earlier than usual, today's video was pre-recorded, meaning I could get it up as soon as my computer was ready to go! Today is my last day off before returning to work, so I hope to get a few more videos recorded today, enabling me to put the posts up first thing instead of rushing to do them each night after a long day at work!

Last night I decided to visit some new blogs and realised why I love blogging so very much... some blogs are just heart-warming and inspirational from the moment the first page loads, with beautiful photos, excellent layouts and honest, down-to-earth posts. I feel this blog is somewhat lacking the magic I wanted to create and am thinking of ways to take it forward in the New Year... I have decided 2010 is going to be "our year", when our life together starts to really take off after the long hard battles we have faced. I'm not going to wish Christmas away, as I love Christmas so very much, but I can honestly say that this year the New Year and the long winter actually holds a lot of hope for me as well, meaning that come Spring I am hoping that we shall be well on our way... I wonder what resolutions we will make and keep!

December 14th

I had planned to spend today getting ahead with recording some videos for the coming week (especially as Tim pointed out that Christmas is actually next week!!) but instead I spent most of my morning snuggled up on the sofa with my favourite little girl (cat) in the world and just when I thought it was safe to start recording she turned up at the window again. Have I ever mentioned that this cat got fed up of waiting at the door for someone to notice her and so she comes and sits by the window, peering in and begging for someone to open it and let her inside? One morning, as I sat eating my breakfast I heard an almighty clatter... she'd only gone and tried jumping through it whilst it was closed... bless. I am so going to miss her when we leave, so I am making sure I have the longest cuddles with her for as long as we are here, which means you will have to excuse me when the ends of my videos get a little distracted or a post or two is a little bit late...

I hope you have sent your letter to Santa... if you haven't, make sure you leave it some place where the star can pick it up and carry it to the North Pole!

December 13th

I've yet to see the little robin who has been keeping an eye on Tim and myself, but I have no doubt he has been hiding somewhere in the holly or the ivy, watching us closely to make sure we have been doing everything we could to be "nice and kind and sweet". Today that meant going shopping for some of the food we need for next week's family gathering, such an exciting thing to plan. I don't want to spoil the surprise of what we will be having, but I think we have managed to rustle up a lovely spread with the help of a few festive cookbooks. Christmas is such a fun time to do things for others and I cannot wait as this will be the first Christmas Tim and I have hosted, the first of many, I hope.

xx

December 12th

Again this one is a tad late... but what a reason for it! We took our niece and a friend to the theatre yesterday to see "A Merry Little Christmas" by Gomito Productions. As with all their productions, this one was full of magic and excitement... the Christmas Trolls entertained us all with carol singing before we entered the theatre, they then told us a tale of Lucy as she tried to recapture the magic of Christmas and save the Christmas Fairy. We met the funny old Yeti, were scared by the hungry wolf and heard about Santa's big flight from a couple of reindeer. The combination of life action and puppets was so amazing, being showered in snow was wonderfully festive and getting to sit on the very front row was a real treat. So I'm sorry that today's poem is late... but how could I post when I was relishing the Christmas magic of such a performance.

The fun continued as we drove home with two little girls spraying us with more snow they had collected from the stage and it was all we could do not to fall about with hysterical laughter ourselves. This is what Christmas is all about - being a child and enjoying the wonder and magic that Christmas brings. I do hope that this series is helping to spread the magic a little bit, and will be back with more every day this week!

xx

December 11th

I am two days behind in posting this video... but what a great two days they were! I'll start with Friday...

Today has been spent looking forward to the rest of Advent, working on the poems for each day that Christmas Eve draws closer. Santa and his Elves have been so very busy, but their work is coming close to completion, just like mine. The toys are all made, the gifts are ready to be wrapped, and the focus now is on getting the sack loaded, the sleigh cleaned and the reindeer looking their best. There may even be some time for some fun and games - just like tonight's party under the tree!

I hope your Advent work is almost done and you too are looking forward to the fun of the festive season xx

December 10th

I got some of the greatest news today from a dear online friend, and then spent the afternoon answering the door to parcel after parcel as Christmas gifts arrived, wrapping said gifts before the recipient emerged from bed (he is on night shifts this week, giving me chance to be sneaky, you see), and then packing away books and dvds ready for our move and making room for more Christmas decorations *yay* All in all it has been a fantastic day!

I hope you have had a wonderful day too... I'll be back soon with, I hope, some more videos...

December 9th

Advent is such a busy time of year (no wonder Santa's elves work so hard!!), even though I bought and wrapped most of our presents in November and have written all but the last few Christmas cards, I am still finding that there is so much left to plan and do. That doesn't mean I want it any other way, but it does explain why so often, the dreams and ideas I wish to fulfil each Christmas never seem to come to fruition... one year I may manage the completely homemade Christmas of my dreams, but this year we'll settle for a nice, simple Christmas where the focus is on being together rather than what we are doing or giving.

That being said, I am so looking forward to the few little bits we do have planned - taking our niece to the theatre, having Tim's family round for a get-together, spending Christmas afternoon just the two of us, having my parents down on Boxing Day, and again spending New Year's alone. Christmas has always been one of my most favourite times of year, mostly due to the magic and wonder that it brings, but also very much due to the focus it brings to family and friends and those around us who we may not have given as much attention to as we might have liked.

I'm off now to put up the cards which have just arrived through our letterbox and to find another Christmas movie to warm my heart with festive fun - have a lovely day xx

December 8th

I had awful troubles remembering today's poem all the way through, and recorded the video far too many times. This version isn't the greatest, but I am afraid it was the only one with the complete poem, so please do excuse the quality of it.

I haven't really made any cards this year, like so many of my projects and ideas they failed to start due to lack of time. Part of this is due to the amount of cards I send out as I just love to use this time of year to catch up with all those people I may not have had time to speak to over the past year, as well as sending loving messages to those we may have seen but want to remind how much they mean to us. Tim was always amazed by just how many cards I receive at Christmas, maybe it is a "girl thing" but I have always received as many cards as I send out.

My grandma, however, is the queen of Christmas cards. Each year her card writing amounts into triple figures (I couldn't say how many, I lose count) and her living room is covered from floor to ceiling with cards she receives. My grandma is the greatest example of what Christmas is all about - she loves to give, she loves to bake, she loves to sing, she loves to be with friends and family and she just brims with festive spirit. I can only hope I have as much festive cheer when I reach her age!

I hope your Christmas card writing is going well, don't forget to get those cards in the post before the last posting dates!

December 7th

Don't forget to check out yesterday's video (which I only posted earlier today *ahem*) or any other videos you may have missed this month. And if you are enjoying these videos, please do leave us a comment and/or pass on the link to your friends and family. The more people who view these videos, the happier I will be.

As a child I always wondered what happened at the North Pole - what were Santa's reindeer doing, how did they keep fit, did the Elves sing as they worked and what did Santa do with his time off (did he even have any time off?) This year, these video poems hope to give an idea of what could be going on up at the North Pole during advent and I hope that you are enjoying them, and would love to hear from you what you think is happening all the way up north... so get your imaginations cracking, some pens and crayons out and have a go, it really is lots of fun!

December 6th (a day late)

Whoops... I know I said on Saturday that I wasn't going to worry about getting my videos up first thing in the morning, but I didn't mean to miss a whole day! Yesterday was lost in a blur of getting out of bed incredibly late, having to do the weekly food shop, talking to friends and family and watching good Sunday evening tv. I love this time of year, the tv seems to have so much to offer in the evening, and I find myself enjoying an evening or two of curling up on the sofa and watching tv, listening to the wind and rain outside and just chilling out.

I cannot help but be reminded at this time of year how very lucky we are to have a roof over our heads and food in our cupboards. Life has been far from easy for us this past year and a bit, but we are incredibly blessed to be loved and supported by so many, we always manage to get by (even if I do sometimes despair that we aren't getting anywhere!)

I have found that my poetry has sat unfinished this past week, due to spending time with family and friends and taking time to simply "be" and remember how lucky we are and how apparent misfortune can actually bring about changes which can bring about far more benefits and blessings than you could ever imagine. Having spent that time I now know I need to start cracking on finishing this series, and tomorrow I shall have the house to myself so I think it's time I started catching up and getting ahead if I can, because I am sure the closer Christmas comes the busier we shall be. But how thankful I am to have had some time to slow down and just live for a while, I do hope you are finding some time for that amongst the bustle of this busy season too.

December 5th

December is such a busy time, I cannot believe how fast it is going... each day I think "I'll record all of my videos today and then I'll be able to post them each morning", only to find that one thing after another pops up and takes me away from the computer and before I know it another day has gone by and it is already half way through the next afternoon (or evening) and I am late in getting that day's poem up, let alone recording the rest!

I wanted this project to take my writing to a new level - I wanted to see how well I could write to a set time frame and if I could write a series of poems in the same time and metre throughout, so that the whole thing flowed. I also wanted to see how videos would work both on my blog and as a way of introducing poetry, as I know sometimes it is hard to read a poem and really get the emotion and intonation that was behind the creating of it. The project is going well, but I don't want to burden myself too much with getting the poems up first thing in the morning and making the videos perfect (or worrying that the sound and picture quality is not so perfect). This is, after all, a project I am doing as an experiment and for fun, so I am trying not to get hung up on these things - one thing I am learning in my life right now is that I don't have to be perfect and neither does my work, reaching for perfection just makes me miserable.

So, you may find that each day's poem gets posted later and later in the day and maybe the videos aren't the greatest quality, because right now I am learning to enjoy the run up to Christmas without panicking about all the things that I usually panic about (whether at this time or year or any other).

Wishing you all a happy Advent

xx

December 4th

My sister has just pointed out that it is only 3 weeks until Christmas - already only 3 weeks!! I have finally caught the Christmas bug, having watched a million Christmas films and wrapped all the presents... sometimes it takes me a while to feel like Christmas is actually here again, but now that the house is decorated and the presents all sent to Santa, ready for delivery on Christmas Eve, I feel like Christmas has finally come.

I can still remember my excitement the first time I put the Christmas presents I had wrapped in a drawer and then when I went to check on them they had already been magicked away... wow, Santa and his elves really do work fast! I hope you've wrapped your presents and put them away safely for Santa to find and deliver, but don't worry if you haven't managed it just yet, Santa will always find time to pick up a present or two right up until Christmas Eve... now there's service!

December 3rd

Today's video was recorded too many times for me to count... our darling cat, who actually belongs to our neighbours but pops round every day for cuddles, kept distracting me half way through and I'd forget what words I was supposed to be saying. In fact this final copy was not the greatest ever and I apologise for the state of it, but it was the only one where I made it all the way through to the end of the poem! Maybe one day I'll post the bloopers, but for today I'll just add this second video so you can see the true star of the show - Pippi

Tim and I have reached a sad moment where we have chosen to take my health and our future ahead of everything else right now and so are moving on from number 22, the gorgeous house we have called home for 1 year instead of more as we had hoped. And do you know the hardest part of this move... knowing we won't get to see this lovely little girl every day (just thinking of it makes me want to cry a little). So I am going to leave this post here and go snuggle with my favourite girl in the whole world.

December 2nd

Well, sorry it's a tad late today - my sister came to stay and we've been watching Holiday Inn whilst trying to get the fire started for the video (yes, despite both of us being ex-Girl Guides we are useless as getting fires going good and strong!)

Because it took so long as well, I didn't have time to learn and rehearse today's poem, so my sister became a make-shift autocue (what else are sisters for?) So you may notice I don't quite look at the screen or hear a sudden rustling halfway through, that's the old-fashioned technology of a piece of paper with the poem written on it being turned over... we're nothing if not classy here!

Anyway, thanks to everyone who popped over yesterday and to those who sent me a message of encouragement - this is turning into a lovely project. But for now I'm going to leave you whilst we go off to watch Father Christmas (the cartoon that is).