Getting Ready for Christmas Early: 8 Weeks to go

I was been working hard on the kitchen, my youngest was off school with a cold, and then we had houseguests for a week (bliss). As a result this is a post that covers several weeks activity.

Here is what’s bought and done;

Christmas stocking presents for my girls

Just various things to paint with, notebooks, decorative hole punches, glitter, hair things….anything small really. These are bought, but not wrapped and, as we are on a two week school vacation, I won’t be able to do them until the children are back at school.

This is mainly because my girls know that mummy and daddy buy and wrap gifts for others, so if they were found whilst wrapped it wouldn’t be the end of the world. However if the wrapped Father Christmas gifts were found it would be a bit revealing. I have them wrapped in a different, more distinctive style – so it would kind of give the game away.

Make up gifts

My oldest girl is about to go to middle school, so I wanted something a bit more grown up for her. So I got her a little set of toiletries and some make up and brushes to play with, but only when she’s inside playing dress up (insert firm, Mum voice here).

For my younger daughter I got a light up unicorn that you decorate as a Little ‘un equivalent.

These have all been wrapped.

Craft things

Lots of painting canvases and colouring books. These are my little presents and I’ve wrapped them.

Saint Nicholas gifts

Each year, as we’re, we celebrate the feast of Saint Nicholas on 6th December. I always give the girls a little gift from the Saint himself and this year I chose Christmas crafts, because I can keep them entertained between now and the big day.

These are wrapped too.

Along with the gifts they always get a large chocolate Father Christmas, with a large candy cane sellotaped to him as a crozier and some gold chocolate coins. These all represent the Saint himself and his works and have been bought and stored away.

Gifts for family and friends that are visiting but who live in Blighty.

These gifts have been bought, wrapped and gone home with them.

Christmas Cake made

Whilst our house guests were here we made our family Christmas cake recipe which includes chocolate and port. In fact we made two, one for them to take home. The whole house smelled of cinnamon. It was delicious.

I’m kind of feeling that the ‘early’ part of this title feels a bit redundant now. How are your festive preparations going?

Getting Ready for Christmas Early: 12 weeks to go

We’re still at the stage of Christmas preparation were I am sure many people seeing this post are wondering why on Earth am I faffing around with this now. Yet with both my daughters birthdays in the next six weeks, along with house decorating on top of Christmas preparations I feel I need to keep adding to my list of things I’ve done.

To show how necessary it is for me, personally, to start well in advance I suddenly realised that there were a lot of names I’d missed off from the christmas cards I’d already written. I hadn’t written out either my friends or my husbands. They’re now done. I’m feeling strangely superior in spite of my constant failure to send cards over many years.

I’ve also chosen and sent a gift to my mother in law in the U.K. She’s a big Royalist and historian so the release of Earthshot as well Catherine’s Hold Still project prompted me to think that these would be good gifts for her.

My daughters and I have finished the bracelets they’re going to gift to their grandmothers and aunts. I like to get them to do something themselves to give relatives.

As there are two of them I don’t want them to make two bracelets per person, so I’ve done a little research on simple necklaces they could also make, and I’ll share these with you next week (when they’re done, hopefully).

I’ve wrapped the rare book bought my mother and added finishing touches to their parcels….

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I’ve also bought and wrapped my youngest daughter’s birthday gifts. This has to be part of my Christmas prep.

The final thing I’ve done this week is decorate the bottles of sparkling wine I bought at the wine fair.

Are you starting early? What are your tips to get ready for Christmas?

Getting Ready for Christmas Early: 13 Weeks to Go

For some reason I thought this was published, oops. So here’s my late 13 weeks to go post.

I’d said how part of my ‘to do’ list was decorating, and this week I’ve been laying the kitchen floor in the will be kitchen. I’m just about to finish it in preparation for the chimney to be swept next week. This has meant that some of the prettier list items haven’t been done. So here goes…

I’ve received delivery of the sparkling wine that I bought for the neighbours. I don’t gift bag them, just put pretty ribbons on and out they go.

I’ve also received delivery of the rare book I’d bought for mum.

I’ve finished my cards with wax seals. They’re ready to go on 1st December.

I’ve been looking up some gift wrap ideas – I want a brown paper theme for the gifts from Father Christmas.

I’ve bought ribbon to go in line with the above.

That’s it for this week. But here’s some of the ideas I came up with for the gift wrap.

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