The week in review

The last few weeks have been all about Christmas for me. I know that some people get a bit stuffy about the run up to Christmas, complaining about the proliferation of mince pies on the end of every supermarket aisle and moaning about the smell of mulled wine coming from every craft fair, but I love it. The sooner I can mull a beverage the better.

That’s why I have been doing everything I can to get into the Christmas spirit.

First things first, when you are doing anything festive of an evening it’s important to be in your pyjamas. More specifically, I have been in my new Cyberjammies, appropriately decorated with reindeer. They are gorgeously soft and comfy and perfect for lounging around in, sherry in hand. They come beautifully packaged too, with a sort of magical ribbon that holds the box in place and yet comes mysteriously undone with no knots at all. (That was almost my best bit.)

As well as a sherry of course, you need chocolates. Everyone knows that you can’t get into the mood for Christmas without a little snackette or two. This week we have been indulging in the Hotel Chocolat Christmas selection. (Of course). 98% of the box are absolutely delicious, as you would expect. Nutmeg however does not, in my humble opinion, work well in a chocolate. It tasted like a lasagne truffle.

If you do want something savoury, you’re probably best going for something from Marks & Spencer. One of Bee and Belle’s favourite bits about Christmas is taking advantage of my vulnerable Christmas generosity and filling a trolley in M&S on December 23rd with unnecessary quantities of smoked salmon canapés. It’s remarkable how easy it is to spend a ridiculous amount of money in M&S, even when you feel like you’ve only bought a few mini quiches and a tin of shortbread, but it is totally worth it. They have a fantastic new party food collection this Christmas, including fancy mini-hotdogs and pizza Christmas trees. Yum.

An important part of Christmas is getting organised and I had a bit of a mad clear out of books last week, ready to…er…fill the shelves back up again with new books. It does feel a little futile but hey, that’s life isn’t it? Buy crap, get rid of crap to make room for new crap. Boyfriend has been doing his bit too, tidying up the living room by organising our cables. (Rock and roll). We are one of those typical families with a ‘behind the television’ area that looks like a pit of confused snakes, and the chaos can end up driving you slowly mad. Fortunately we have some cables tidies and box things from D-line so now our cables are all tidy and ready for Christmas. Hours of fun for Boyfriend.

What would Christmas be of course without decorations? Nothing, that’s what, which is why I have at least three giant storage boxes full of the things. Sometimes though it’s the simplest of ideas that are the most fun – paper chains, snowmen made out of toilet rolls and cotton wool, that sort of thing. We’ve actually been using circular kitchen towel from Ora to cut out snowflakes – it works really well and if you do happen to get over-excited and knock your sherry over while you’re cutting out then you can simply use a snowflake to mop it up. Genius.

And finally, although she eyed my pyjamas enviously, Belle soon got over it when I presented her with a lovely new fleece from Muddy Puddles. In fact, she keeps wearing it and cuddling me, purely to try and make me jealous about how soft it is. It is incredibly soft, and a beautiful colour too. It kept her toasty warm when she came to watch my netball team play one evening this week and it will be ideal for all the Christmas fairs in drafty church halls that I am going to insist on dragging her to over the next few weeks.

Disclosure: we were sent the products mentioned in this post for the purposes of this review.