Christmas traditions, Green-style
November 23, 2010
- Sending out Christmas cards - when we got married, our Christmas card list doubled because all our relatives found out where we live... Christmas card writing now takes us a whole day, but I love it! I also love hanging all the ones we receive on little strings with tiny pegs.
- Buying a real Christmas tree, must be blue spruce, must be local, must be put up the first weekend in December.
- Put up the Christmas tree, whilst listening to HP Lovecraft carols and drinking mulled wine. Mattgreen hates mulled wine, so I have to drink all of it. We always have a theme - this year it's blue and black, but sometimes it's blue and gold, or silver and blue. I collect blue tree decorations, they're hard to find so it keeps things interesting. Izzy always puts the wizard on the top of the tree. Then we officially switch on the lights and go 'ooh' and I spend the next 3 weeks sitting in the dark, mesmerised by the flickering.
- I have lots of food related ones - I always put pound coins in the Christmas pudding and insist everyone gives it a stir, Mattgreen always arranges the penguins on the top of our family Christmas cake, if we're home we always have Nigella's Christmas morning muffins, I'm sure there's more too...
- We have little bowls of pistachios and gold coins and nuts-in-shells in the lounge. I start this at the beginning of December and carry on until New Year.
- Driving over to the other side of town to see an amazing Christmas light display that one of the houses puts up every year.
- Izzy and I always have an advent calendar each.
- Buying the Radio Times and setting Sky+ to record loads of programmes I will later delete unwatched ;-)
- Starbucks gingerbread latte in the red cups and preferably a cranberry panini, eaten in the cafe in town by myself whilst doing last-minute shopping.
- I like to have a wreath on the door - someone at Mattgreen's work makes amazing ones.
- A few days before Christmas I hang jingle bells and tinsel around Ludo's collar so that she jangles everywhere she goes.
- Carols - I love them. I try to get at least one chance to sing. This year we're going to see an amazing candlelit concert at the Royal Albert Hall, it will be A.MAZING and I can hardly wait.
- Isabel always has a new pair of pyjamas for Christmas Eve.
Writing this post has rocked the anticipation up to ten! Roll on December!
