I'm loving December! I love it, even though its dark and gloomy early because the houses are lit up with Christmas lights and decorations - it just lifts my spirits. I love seeing peoples different decorating tastes - whether its traditional, sophisticated or eclectic - I just really appreciate it.
Last week's Christmas Prep Week 4
The Christmas tree is going up! Decorating has begun
Start of choir rehearsals for my younger children for the Christmas service
Youngest Christmas school performance 'Away in a spaceship'
Plan Christmas Activities for December
Start collecting Christmas food ideas/leaflets
Unfortunately, I have picked up the winter bug so we didn't have the energy to put up the tree etc on the 1st as planned but we did it on the 2nd - also because of this we missed our children's first choir rehearsals (naughty mummy). My husband thought it started at 11.30, so at 11.20 was getting ready to take them and then I told him they started at 11, at which point we were too late. Never-mind, we will make more of an effort this week. If I had been on the ball I would have remembered.
Anyway the Christmas decorations, if you follow me on Instagram you will see our daily advent readings and little hints of how our Christmas decorations look. We have 3 trees - 1 per floor. They are artificial trees. We have mainly decorated the halls and the living room as these are the rooms we spend the most time in. We have lots of trinkets as well as our thankful paper chains.
This weeks highlight was my youngest's son school nativity production. Every school that my 4 boys have been in put a modern take on the Christmas story. I guess this is to create more parts. His play 'away in a spaceship' was told from the point of view of aliens visiting our planet at Christmas time. It was quite sweet and they used the tunes of well known Christmas songs to tell the story of a modern Christmas, that people without faith would recognise.
Personally, I would rather attend a class play that was more of a traditional nativity then being crammed into a school whole with 2 whole year groups. His school only do Christmas plays till year 4, so that is the last one I'll attend - at least as a mother. An end of an era for me!
My son played the part of a dad. He was a bit miffed at first because he wanted more lines, he's a funny little character - but he embraced his part and sang the songs well. I was proud to watch him.
The last few Christmas' we have always done a Christmas activity to bring in Christmas, whether that's a visit to see Father Christmas, ice skating, lights in London etc and this year it seems to have passed us by. We have however, just been busy doing normal Christmas things. As the boys are older, they have their own Christmas social activities to attend as well.
My husband is working away in Denmark this week and when he returns we will be celebrating his birthday. On that Sunday, the boys need to buy and wrap their Christmas presents. The weekend after that, is the last weekend before Christmas! It's coming around very quickly.
The weekend before Christmas, we are planning to sing in a choir in town and then we have chosen to visit Costa afterwards for a treat. The boys like the different hot chocolates and Christmas cakes they have to offer.
This year, I discovered I was gluten and dairy intolerant and so far looking at the Christmas offers from the supermarket brochures, means I need to be cooking everything from scratch. Fortunately, this is the last week of home educating, so the following week we (my home ed helper) will be prepping and making sure we have all the goodies for Christmas day.
This week we also took delivery of a new cooker. I'm quite excited. Its not a fancy one but it is to me! we inherited the previous oven from the last people who lived in our house and it never held the temperature very well. This year I will not have to cook each dish separately! I'm looking forward to this.
Christmas Prep Week 5
Plan menu for Christmas
Husbands birthday (a non Christmas day)
Prepping/planning/making teacher gifts
Teen social
Get tickets for children's ball
Start on the wrapping
Previous Christmas Prep Series: