Small pleasures of Christmas

Throughout advent this year, I have tried to focus on finding and celebrating my own small pleasures of Christmas. Some might be shared by lots of you, some are probably specific to me and my family. It varies every year.

 

I have always loved Christmas but it can be a tricky time and I think I feel this more as I, and the children, get older. As parent to an eighteen (!) and fifteen year old, the magic of small children and Father Christmas is lessened and our traditions are different. That's not to say that the magic of Christmas is gone, but it is different. (And we all know that the "magic" of Christmas is down to the invisible labour of mostly women planning, thinking, shopping, wrapping, preparing, organising and juggling.*) What we all want and need from Christmas is different. The anticipation is lovely but the pressure is huge. The juggle between prioritising rest while seeing all the friends and family you want to see, the push and pull of self care versus a busy calendar, is always a challenge. It is always an especially hectic time of year for us with six Christmas birthdays, one of which is Bella's. And so this year I have enjoyed noticing our rituals and traditions as I find them grounding. I have deliberately sought the comfort of repetition and the familiarity of nostalgia, especially when life is so very busy (and sometimes stressful, especially in a classroom at end of term before Christmas).

I visited a Winter Fair with my mum, sister, nieces and Bella. I bought Christmas presents and just enjoyed the beautiful atmosphere and displays.

I hung the same advent calendar I have been hanging for years, and I fill it with chocolates each night for the kids. This is a tradition I don't think I could ever stop doing. I felt nostalgic for the cardboard advent calendars of my childhood, the sort with pictures behind the doors, and ordered myself one with a whippet on it.

I got our the nativity scene. There are so many memories in this! The kids loved playing with the figures when they were little and I used to find Sylvanian Family mice and Playmobil Santas mixed in with Mary and Joseph.

The Christmas reading pile was put into place. This is one of my favourite things about Christmas. 

I treated myself to  a new Christmas book, to add to the others on the shelf. 

And enjoyed listening to others on Audible while waiting to pick up Bella from work. (Although since taking this photo, Bella has passed her driving test so can now get herself everywhere, and even pick me up from my work Christmas party, as she did on Friday night.)

I had a very festive day in London for my book group's annual Christmas meet up. We had a delicious, long lunch at the Wolseley and then wandered around the shops, looking at the beautiful window displays. 

I wrote some Christmas cards. Less and less each year, but I still like to write them when I have time.

I received some truly lovely ones in return, including this inspired mini-advent calendar and a beautiful hand-painted one. So clever!

I also continued with my tradition of turning last year's Christmas cards into this year's gift tags. I remember my mum doing this when we were little. I use a 3 inch hole punch I bought from either Hobbycraft or Amazon, I can't remember, to get a perfect circle shape, then a normal hole punch to make a small hole for the thread.

I love doing this. It gives me double the enjoyment of last year's cards. 

We hung the same decorations on the tree, an eclectic mixture of old and new, handmade and shop-bought. 

Plus a new one.

I spent a delightful morning with my mum and sister making a wreath. I have chosen to hang it on the inside because the weekend we made it, it was exceptionally windy and stormy, and I didn't want it to fly off down the street! 

It was fun making the new front door Christmassy. I found these old stars I made a few years ago from paper bags glued together and I like the way they catch the light.

Angus and I watched The Box of Delights, as we do every year. This year it's been on BBC4 so you can find it on BBC iPlayer. 

We had a lovely flying visit to Yorkshire to see our friends in Holmfirth and plan next year's holiday. Festive and something to look forward to in the new year!

I attempted some crafting, with mixed success. I saved up loads of tomato puree tubes, opened them out and washed them for their shiny gold interior.

I've seen lots of ideas online for turning them into garlands and tree decorations.

Cutting out the shapes was easy but it was hard to add any detail. I tried pens and pencil but they didn't really show up. I probably need something harder or sharper.

I meant to string them all up with gold wire, but they kept breaking when I tried to poke a little hole through the top, and I didn't have any wire....so I made some stars from an old book instead.

Now it is the Christmas holidays. I have wrapped my presents (last night, in front of Die Hard 2), and cleaned the house. I  am going to pick up the turkey later then ice my Christmas cake. Tonight we pick up my mother in law from the airport then tomorrow I need to do lots of cooking, including roasting our turkey crown and ham, peeling and roasting enough potatoes for thirteen, and making a Yule Log. We are going to my sister's for Christmas Day but we all bring a different element of the meal. I have to bring roast potatoes, gravy and the Christmas pudding. Then we heat everything up and eat together. It works well as she has the space to seat lots of people but not the workload of having to cook absolutely everything. I still order us a turkey crown and ham as I love the leftovers and will make lots of lunches and dinners from them during the week after Christmas. 

I can feel myself starting to relax. Yesterday I made a batch of mince pies (this recipe) while listening to this wonderful podcast. Then my friend Charlotte came over for lunch and we had a lovely time catching up. After she left, I popped out for a quick solo walk as - for once - the sun was shining and I wanted to feel the cold air and winter sun on my face. I felt more peaceful in that moment than I have in weeks. I miss our dog walks a lot and I have resolved to get out for as many walks as possible over the holidays.

I wish you all a very merry Christmas. I hope the festive seasons brings you what you need. Thank you for being here and reading and leaving comments, I appreciate it. 

*Just to be clear - I am not making a comment on my own situation here. John shares a great deal of the mental and physical work involved in family life, but I see a big imbalance in so many of my friends' relationships. 

Seasons shifting

Thank you so much for your kind and thoughtful words about our dog Ziggy. It is getting easier all the time but we still miss him hugely. We have been making an effort to do some of the walks we associate with him, and to remember some of the lovely walks we had in the last couple of weeks before he died.

I took all those photos above at the end of October and beginning of November in the midst of a mild and sunny autumn. Two weeks later, and the weather has sharply turned wintry, with frosts and storms removing the last leaves from the trees. 

These photos remind me that I haven't been down to the beach since the summer. I always want to be in the woods in the autumn, but the beach on a sunny winter's day is spectacular.

Our recent weeks have been a mixture of work and home, of jobs and relaxing, Keeping busy has been helpful. Salvation came in the form of this jigsaw puzzle, the weekend after we lost Ziggy, when I couldn't really concentrate on anything. We cleaned the entire house from top to bottom, washed the cars inside and out, baked, anything. I did a jigsaw and listened to audiobooks.

It is from Happily Puzzles . I love their designs and have asked for another for Christmas. 

Reading has also been a great pleasure. The Clues in the Fjord is a murder mystery set in Iceland. I bought it for the location, and it did not disappoint. One of those novels where the landscape is so vivid, so well-described, that it almost becomes another character. 

I read The Ministry of Time for book group. It's a compelling, genre-crossing mixture of science fiction, history and romance. Very good.

However, the greatest comfort has come in the form of re-reading Jilly Cooper's Riders and Rivals. Absolute joyful escapism back into the 80s. I have been listening to them on Audible and they had been perfect for my current mood and need for distraction, but without anything too complicated.

I have cooked and cooked. Some of this was over half term, some more recently. 

I turned the redcurrants and blackcurrants, picked from the garden over the summer and frozen, into jam and jelly.

I made both redcurrant jam and jelly, just to see which I liked more, and also my two blackcurrant bushes yielded a whopping one and half jars of jam. 

I experienced my usual October/November obsession with pumpkin spice (I just googled it and found a recipe online) and used it in cookies and cakes. 

 

I made things I knew the kids would really love: Nigella's jam doughnut muffins and homemade oreos (chocolate biscuits sandwiched with buttercream).  Comfort cooking. 

I made crumble with blackberries from the freezer and cooked the pumpkins I bought for decoration weeks ago. They turned out well in a roasted then turned into soup flavoured with curry paste and coconut milk, and thickened with lentils. More comfort cooking. 

And I made a Christmas cake. Every year I go back and forth about baking one. Should I bother? It's only really me who eats it. But cooking and decorating it brings me so much pleasure, so I made one.

As the days get shorter I find myself retreating into the house more, watching the way the light moves differently around the rooms.

Changing the summery displays over for something more autumnal. 

I may have to add a bit of festive sparkle to this in a few weeks.

Pottering like this makes me feel so grounded and content.

We did some bigger jobs over half term. With the help of my wonderful, endlessly loving, helpful and patient parents, we decorated Bella's bedroom. It feels so grown up now. She chose a really nice colour (Lick Beige 02) and has styled it beautifully. 

We also gave the garage an almighty clear out. We took car loads of rubbish to the tip and charity shop, and gave it all a very thorough clean and tidy.

Tedious, dirty and dusty work, but we can now find things.

I did a lot of gardening. My mum helped my cut back my geraniums ready to go into the cold frame. Hopefully they will survive the winter there and I can replant them in the spring. 

I have changed the pots on the front step into something more wintry: cyclamen, ivy and (I think) silver dust.

Drinking a cup of tea outside after you've worked hard gardening is one of the best cups of tea. Second only to the first cup of the day.

We bought a silver birch from our local garden centre, for Ziggy. 

This robin watched over us the whole time. It was lovely.

And now we are approaching the end of November. The weather feels like winter lately, with hard frosts and beautiful sunrises. Unfortunately they always seem to occur on week days which is a shame as a heavy frost makes me want to go for a big walk in the countryside. It always seems to be wet at the weekend. We even had a flurry of snow last week, very unusual down here on the south coast, especially in November.

We have got out the warmest woolly blanket and are lighting the fire regularly.

Christmas looms ahead of us and I view it with a mixture of dread and anticipation. There is so much to do, to remember, to coordinate, to think about. The mental load is huge. But I am looking forward to it too: I have plans to see friends, family are coming to stay -  the calendar is pretty packed between now and Christmas day. There will be Christmas lights and markets and wreath-making and lunches out and all sorts of loveliness.