Yes, it’s December, so I am officially allowed to say that Christmas is coming. What with being on maternity leave, I am quite prepared for the silly season: at least I have bought most of my presents (being in to receive Amazon Prime deliveries has its benefits!) and my Ocado and butcher’s order are in (although obviously I tweak my Ocado order pretty much every day in the run up to Christmas).
Most importantly, I have bought a range of outfits for Ioan so that he’ll be dressed festively for every day of the holidays. I am also starting some activities for Ioan’s first Christmas, which I am hoping will become our family traditions.
First of all, Ioan and Andrew both had to stir up the Christmas cake as part of stir it up Sunday.
Then, an Elf on the shelf called Titus has become a member of our family, and is taking part in daily photo ops around the house.
The cats got dressed up for Christmas.
I made an advent calendar for Ioan, but as he’s too young to appreciate it (and eat or drink anything other than milk) I have filled it with chocolate and booze so that Andrew and I can benefit from it.
We will be buying our Christmas tree next week and decorating the house, Ioan’s Christmas pjs have already been washed and dried ready for Christmas eve, we all have Christmas jumpers to wear, and I am planning our festive menu with relish (this also changes regularly, accounting for the Ocado edits).
I’d be very keen to hear what your family Christmas traditions are, as I might pinch some of them, so please let me know in the comments at the bottom of this post, or on Facebook or Twitter. Until then, here’s my menu plan for the coming week:
- Monday – salmon and prawn laksa
- Tuesday – Vietnamese pork with rice
- Wednesday – Andrew is out at his Christmas party so I’ll be eating something from the freezer
- Thursday – stew and dumplings
- Friday – lightly dusted place with potatoes and veg
- Saturday – chicken cordon bleu
- Sunday – sausage casserole
Although I am not religious, on Christmas Eve if it was a clear night we used go for a walk (we could walk in a big circle of about a mile and a half around our village). The purpose of the walk was to look for the star……I think it was probably Venus that we spotted but hey ho, it was a nice little walk before bedtime and became our little tradition.
That’s a lovely idea – I think I will go for a walk on Christmas Eve when Ioan is older too – get him sleepy before Santa makes an appearance!
Lovely to keep up traditions.
Looking forward to stew and dumplings on Thursday and big cuddles from my grandson! x
He was looking forward to them as well 🙂