What We Did for Christmas 2016

I really enjoyed doing my What We Did for Halloween 2016 that I decided to do one as a round up of all the Christmassy things we’ve been up to this December. Sometimes I don’t take enough photos or have enough to say about a specific thing that happened so by doing this round up post I can still make a record of how to celebrated Christmas in 2016. Of course I’ll no doubt still do a post all about Little Miss’ Christmas eve  and then one about Christmas day itself but we have had a busy December so it seems a shame not to share all the little things we did in the run up to the big day.

Decorating The Christmas Tree
First port of call at the beginning of the season is obviously putting the tree up. It’s such hard work that I try and put it up as early as possible. In the past it’s been as soon as the 25th, however this year I managed to stretch it to the 26th November. LM and I stuck off Beauty and the Beast The Enchanted Christmas followed by Once Upon a Christmas. I ordered pizza and we got to work. It definitely made the room feel cosier in the cold weather especially with the Christmas scented candles burning. As I blogged about how our living room looks at Christmas last year I’ve only photographed our newest ornaments. I’m well on my way to a full Disney tree!

Little Miss’ First School Nativity
Probably the best part of school this December for LM was the fact she got to take part in her first ever school play. LM’s favourite subjects at school are drama, music, dance.. well basically anything creative. They apparently act out story books a lot and she always wants to take part and when she was playing with the lego she built a STAGE of all things. So her first time being on a real stage was a big thing! She got to be an angel (although she desperately wanted to be Mary) and she looked completely adorable. She had a line and she took the whole thing so seriously including the songs and her dance moves. I was so proud of her. I guess I’m not surprised she’s so creative, lets hope she can get further than I ever did! She’s still acting out her nativity on a daily basis with figures/lego/tsum tsums and she sings the songs constantly! I hope they do something else in the new year so she can focus on that.

Visiting Santa Claus
Little Miss met Santa a grand total of four times this year! However I was only present for two of those (one was a school trip, the other my parents took her). She’s still a huge believer and it’s probably one of the highlights of the year for her. In the village my parents live in the local community did out an old fishing shiel as a grotto which for me was probably the most magical visit. Santa Claus had his own room with a real fire, big Christmas tree and comfy chair. It was so cold that it was like visiting him in Lapland. It was really magical and it was so great for the village to pull something out of the bag like this, I really hope they do it again next year. We also saw Libby, she was working as one of Santa’s elves so it was nice to see a familiar face.

Berwick Christmas Market
In keeping with supporting local causes, we went to our local Christmas market one Sunday. It was very cold and very busy but my dad managed to buy some wine, Little Miss went on a couple of rides and we ate some Gyros for lunch, how not very Christmassy. It was a great atmosphere and this was the other time I saw LM meet Santa Claus. My parents must have bumped into a million people they knew so we spent a good couple of hours there. Thankfully LM really loves the environment of the Christmas market so no complaints from her. Plus she was channeling Sara Crewe from A Little Princess and she knew she looked cute.

Edinburgh Christmas Market
The Sunday before Christmas saw us all head up to Edinburgh for the day. My parents, my sister, my nephew, LM & I. We were also going to be meeting up with my cousin and her family who are visiting from Australia, my Aunt & Uncle plus three of my other cousins and their families. The kids throughly enjoyed the rides and my nephew even went ice skating. It’s always a good atmosphere to get you in the mood but it was so busy. I really just enjoyed spending time with family which is definitely something I got to do. I always took Little Miss on the carousel which is a yearly tradition for me. I’m heading up again with LM on the 29th December to meet her friend Quinn, I’m sure they’ll have loads of fun on the rides together and hopefully it’ll be less crowded after the big day.

Oleg as Olaf joined the family
Compare the Market sent out one of their limited edition Oleg as Olaf soft toys to help promote their Meerkat Movies 2 for 1 ticket offer. I popped him under the tree and told LM that the elves had brought him as she’d been so good all year. You may remember I did something similar last year with her Sing Along Elsa doll and it went down a great treat and proved to be an extra push to ensure she was well behaved all December (because lets face it, it’s like kids are on a sugar high the whole month!) She loved him and has carted him around ever since.

Disney Secret Santas
I took part in two secret santas this year organised by Disney enthusiasts on Twitter. The first was organised by Emma and I actually have no idea who my secret santa was but I did receive a gorgeous Christmas decoration from Disneyland Paris. It sat proudly on my fireplace until I packed everyhing away again. I loved the way it shone when I had the candles were lit. If you were my secret santa please tell me so I can thank you personally!

The second one I took part in was organised by Eleanor and I was matched with Megan! Megan treated both LM and I to a pretty necklace each. Alice in Wonderland for me, and Peter Pan for LM. I actually had similar ones on my etsy wishlist so I was happy. She also sent a sweet letter, card and a huge bar of Galaxy! I’ve already thanked her personally on Twitter but a special shoutout to Emma and Eleanor for organising!

In the run up to Christmas I’ve been working my butt off as I was ill the previous week. I had 6 deadlines to do in 5 days but thankfully my mum has been off and has been entertaining the kids. They’ve done crafts, baking, drawing, watched movies, played games. I don’t know what I would have done without her as I managed to get everything done and submitted. Although I plan on taking things easy over the Christmas holidays and only really blogging what I want and when I want, it’s nice to know I’ll have money in the bank come new year. At least thats one thing off my mind!

What have you been up to this Christmas?