Friday 21 December 2012

Five Things Friday - the Christmas edition

Well, it is Christmas after all and appropriate to write about Christmas.  I'd write about Christmas all year round and leave the decorations up too but apparently that is a tiny bit mental (according to Hubby).

Five things I have love about Christmas:

1     Writing Christmas cards, wrapping presents and delivering them

Normally, I am extremely organised.  This year I haven't been.  When I try and thing why all I see is procrastination but not the normal dallying about I can do.  I don't seem to have stopped but also don't seem to be getting anywhere.

Normally my cards and presents are bought, wrapped and written by the end of the first week in December so i can leisurely deliver them.  Not this year and boy has it stressed me out. Amazingly so.  I am determined not to have that happen next year so I have already organised and booked in my diary a card writing and gift wrapping party for the first weekend in December.  

Hubby thinks I am mental and is already talking of going round to see a friend that night to get out of the way.

I love delivering cards and presents.  This year I made sure that one evening I delivered only 2 lots.  One to Angel and one to my brother and his fiancee.   Angel has been having a bad time at work and so I let her rant and it was just what she needed.  I was sorry to go so early and we have booked more time in the diary between Christmas and New Year - whoop.

2      Visiting family and friends

Following on from above, there is nothing better than being off work for the holidays and having the time to spend lots of quality time with those you love.  Christmas Day is always such a rush.  I even had to wake Beautiful B up last year to open her presents because we had to be at my mums by a certain time and then Hubby's.  No doubt this year will be the same.  

We spend Boxing Day with mum and dad usually though mum is still saying she isn't doing Christmas this year as she fell out with Dad about how stressed he got putting Christmas decorations up last year.  She is not stubborn at all, oh no she is not....

Her Christmas tree went up late, at my dad's insistence and she refused to get involved, instead going upstairs to avoid any temper tantrums by dad.  Not his fault, his stroke affected the emotion sensors in his brain; mum just hasn't learnt to let it go over her head.

So I am not sure if we will be there Boxing Day this year for the requisite party but I will still visit and later go to my brothers for a mini party with Hubby....and lots of alcohol.

3      Christmas films

Hubby hates them, I love them.  Last year I watched nearly a 100 of them.  Recuperating from major surgery allowed the time to sit in bed and watch cheesy Christmas films back to back.  It helps that Sky put on 2 Christmas film channels.  Then there is The Santa Clause trilogy which we own and which I always watch with Beautiful B.  Lets also not forget The Grinch which Beautiful B insists on us watching because it takes her back to being a young Beautiful B spending quality time with me when it was just us two.

4     Christmas food

I am already paying for eating too much food and will spend most of next year at Weightwatchers.  However, it won't stop me buying the party food from at least 3 stores which we live on over Christmas.  We almost have a week long party and party food has to go with that - or that is my excuse.

Cooking some finger food and snuggling up on the sofa with Hubby to watch comedies, Christmas Quiz Shows and best of all the darts is my kind of heaven.

This year we are house and dog-sitting for a week and there is plenty of time for us to spend quality time together.  It is helpful that Hubby thought it was a good idea for our friends to have us look after there house seen as I volunteered our services automatically without asking how he felt about it.

Another upside is that Beautiful B gets to spend quality time with her boyfriend, R as they will house and dog sit at our house.  It gives them the freedom they don't get sharing the house with Hubby and I most of the time.  

She's responsible, I don't need to worry about parties.....do I?

5     Decorations

I alluded to this above but I love them so much.  Hubby does not enjoy the run up to Christmas so it is a good job that Beautiful B does.  Having said that she had no choice, growing up with me.  Each year on the 1st of December Hubby goes up into the loft (because I am too small to get up there even with the ladders) and braves the spiders he is so scared of to fetch down 15 boxes of various decorations for the house. 

We have 2 trees, because we roll like that, one for the living room and one for the dining room.  The front window of the house is full of decorations and lights, there are various LED displays around the living room and it takes a full day to put them up.

Beautiful B and I play Christmas songs and have Christmas films on in the background and we love it.  Hubby stays upstairs out of the way!

This year the decorations went up late.  Hubby was away that week and didn't want to get them down before he went away and then work got in the way.  Along with the Christmas cards that seriously stressed me out. There is nothing worse for me that being behind schedule, even if it is 'just' Christmas.

Hubby worries about the number of sockets used and I tell him about the trip switches every year, I have to show him which plugs to pull at night in case he accidently switches Sky off (and God forbid it means one of my programmes isn't recorded), I lose count of how many baubles fall of the tree as I turn the lights off at night but it is all worth it.  Sitting in front of the TV snuggled up to Beautiful B or Hubby or the fluff bags with all the lights shining and sparkling makes it feel so very cosy.

If I could get away with it, I would have the decorations up all year round and when they come down I feel almost bereft for a week afterwards as the room appears so very bare.  

So, what are your five favourite things about Christmas?

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