Only a week until Christmas! As the days pass and the big day draws nearer, I hope that you’re all feeling ready (and excited!) for some festive celebrations… I know that this last week often means charging around for last minute gifts, making sure that nothing has been forgotten from the food shop, posting out cards…etc, but it’s also a time where we see lots of Christmas traditions being followed and one thing that I love about this time of year is seeing how these bring friends and families together and how each home tends to have their own special way of doing them.
The most well-known and seen traditions are of course our lovely Christmas trees, mince pies, stockings, mistletoe, the FEAST on Christmas day, Christmas pudding, the brilliant Christmas music we hear all over the place, carols…and that’s to name just a few, but I just love the twists that homes across the country put onto these and that each household has their own individual way of celebrating Christmas.
When I was little, my brother, sister and I used to put Christmas hats on when we were ready for bed in our pyjamas, lay a plate of mince pies and carrots with a glass of sherry by the fireplace for Father Christmas and his reindeer and hang our stockings up. We then used to walk around the house singing Jingle Bells through each room and drop each of us off into bed along the way. Unbeknownst to us at the time, my Dad would come back downstairs, put his wellies on and pour talcum powder around them to make it look like there were snowy footprints coming from the chimney (he’d also take a bite of one of the carrots and see off the mince pies and sherry too!). We always used to stir the Christmas pudding mix together (we all had to stir it once and make a wish), made sausage rolls with Mum on Christmas Eve and were never allowed to open our presents until we’d all had a special breakfast together!
These days my husband and I of course don’t don Christmas hats and skip around the house (I’ll have him doing it one day!) but we love putting on our Christmas music whilst decorating the tree – it’s not Christmas until I’ve heard Slade and Mariah – and we open a bottle of fizz each year whilst we’re putting it up too. My Mum to this day gets out decorations that we made for her at primary school – a Father Christmas, an angel and a comedy sheep which has us all laughing every December and it just reminds me every year what a special time this is for us all.
Traditions are a wonderful thing and something which I think really play a huge part in making the festive season so memorable for everyone. We wish you all a very Merry Christmas gang and we look forward to seeing you all in the New Year!