The Christmas Tag 2015

1. What are your favourite thing about this time of year?

Scented candles
Blankets
Festive flavoured coffee

2. What's your favourite festive drink?

Costa's toffee nut latte
A cinnamon latte
A snowball cocktail

3. What are your favourite Christmas songs?

Do They Know It's Christmas, Band Aid
Merry Christmas Everyone, Shakin Stevens

4. What is your favourite Christmas movie

Miracle on 34th Street. Love to watch this on Christmas Eve or the weekend before Christmas with my family accompanied by some festive nibbles. Unfortunately, some family members are voting for a different film this year.

5. What are your favourite Christmas dishes?

Christmas Turkey dinner
My Dad's homemade yule log

6. Giving or receiving gifts?

Both. I love hitting the bustling streets in the run up to Christmas, to see the decorations and browse the shelves for those perfect presents. I like giving at Christmas but I don't like to give for the sake of it, I like to give meaningful, thoughtful gifts.

I also like receive thoughtful gifts from friends and family, definitely, thoughtful over expensive. Gifts I often receive are little things that others know that I wouldn't buy for myself, a few little treats for myself.

7. What does Christmas mean to you?

I really like the term Christmas Spirit. To me is means spending time with friends and family as well as thinking of and giving to those less fortunate than myself. I like to treat my family with gifts and others through charitable work.

8. When was your most meaningful Christmas?

When my family put Christmas on hold for a day two years running so I could work on Christmas Day and then celebrate Christmas as a family on Boxing Day.

9. What are your Christmas traditions?

I shared my Christmas traditions in my previous post if you want to take another look

10. What are your New Years resolutions?

To tick some things off my 30 Before 30 list here

 

Images from Pinterest

Please share your answers, I would love to hear about your Christmases

Holiday Traditions

I have recently read a few blog posts about Christmas traditions and it got me thinking about the holidays that my family celebrate. When I think about it we don't celebrate many at all. Pancake day (proper name Shrove Tuesday) often brings my immediate family together to share a few pancakes after an evening meal. I think on a few occasions I have driven to my Mum's after a Zumba class to scoff pancakes! I understand that Shrove Tuesday is a religious day but as I do not have a faith many holidays have become about bringing my family together. We may also share a meal for Easter and swap Easter eggs, or in my Sisters case Easter themed cupcakes due to her dislike of chocolate.

And then comes Christmas!

This is my favourite holiday and again is all about family and loved ones. Even though my parents, my sister and I all live in different places we come together Christmas morning, although it gets closer to midday each year, to open our presents. Presents are handed around one at a time from under the tree and we watch each other open the gifts that have been thoughtfully purchased and not always as thoughtfully wrapped if they are mine. We take the time to appreciate each gift and thank the person who gave it. This is accompanied by a cd of Christmas songs playing softly in the background and in recent years my parents log burner glowing away. Although we travel back to my parents home to open our presents we always do so in our pyjamas and I have been known to start the day with a festive snowball cocktail. There is then a little bit of time for each of us to get ready for the family meal. We try to alternate between my parents home and m Auntie's for Christmas dinner and try to get as many family members together as possible, this year it will be a little quieter than usual. We spend the rest of the afternoon and evening eating and spending time together around the table.

It would seem, like possibly many other families, food brings mine together.

In the last few years I have begun some new traditions of my own, which are mostly centred around Christmas and New Year as I think of it as a special time of year and a time to share some Christmas Spirit;

 

Images from Pinterest

• Send a Christmas Shoebox
  (you can read my post about them here)
• Volunteer at the night shelter
• Give donations to the local food bank
• Put together a little package for the little girl I sponsor through SOS Children's Villages

I would also love to adopt and celebrate Thanksgiving. As with other holidays I may not celebrate as intended but in my own way. I think dedicating a day to being thankful is a positive idea that should be acknowledged. Some may say that we should be thankful as we go about our daily lies but I do not think it is always as easy as that with other stressors that can sometimes act as a distraction.

What holiday traditions do you celebrate? Are there any new ones that you would like to start?