Fangirl, Sparkly Dresses and Christmas Lists – #LittleLoves

I know I start almost every Little Loves post with a variation of ‘I can’t believe another week has passed’, ‘how can it be Tuesday again already?’ or ‘where has the time gone?’ but really, how did December come around again so fast? It seems like only yesterday we were rolling forward clocks and heralding the start of Springtime, and here we are pulling out the Christmas decorations and writing letters to Santa yet again. Thankfully, I love December – even if it has sneaked up on me a bit – for me, it’s all about the run up and savouring the little moments – school concerts, twinkly lights, Christmas jumpers…the list goes on. I’m sitting here typing in my festive sweater while drinking coffee from my favourite Santa mug 🙂 And while I may be feeling a bit behind re buying Christmas presents, now that we’re into the last month of the year, it’s definitely going to be all systems GO! 🙂

READ

I suppose I might be further on with my Christmas shopping if I didn’t spend so much time reading, but in my defence I do most of my reading in the bath these days and that’s probably not the best place for shopping, or for that matter, anything else 😉 This week I’ve been reading Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell (great name, eh?) – one recommended by my blogging friend Hayley who always has lots of lovely bookish posts. This one is probably aimed at people much younger than me but let’s just skim over that mere detail 😉 It’s a lovely story about a girl who goes away to university and has to wrestle a Harry-Potter style book series obsession, a changing relationship with her twin sister, and some blossoming affairs of the heart. It really takes me back to my youth, and that feeling of connection to something that really strikes a chord with you. It’s a lovely, sweet read and I’d really recommend it – whether you’re a younger reader, a fangirl or just a teenager at heart 🙂

WATCHED

My husband has been working away a lot recently, so we haven’t been dipping into any new box sets. Even though I’m desperate to get into Designated Survivor and Vikings, it’s no fun when you have to wait up to a week for your next episode – and so naturally we decided to re-watch the Twilight series all over again. Believe it or not, this was actually my husband’s suggestion – thankfully I love all the teenage angst, earnest stares and wolf/vampire stuff (good grief, looking at what I’ve been posting so far, you’d think I was about 18!) Regardless, it makes me want to re-read the whole book series. For me, Breaking Dawn, the final book in the series, was one of the most page-turner-ish novels I’ve ever read! 🙂

WORE

Technically more trying on than wearing, but how about this sparkly River Island number I picked up for the princely sum of £6.95 in a local charity shop at the weekend?  I’ve always bought a lot of my stuff from charity shops and I also pop lots of items back in when we’re done with them. This one was a total bargain and so nice for the party season (or at least my version of the party season which involves spending a lot of time indoors and going to bed by 10pm). One of these days I’ll have to do a blog post on some of my favourite charity shop purchases. It’s such a good way of getting a shopping fix if you’re on a budget but also gives you that feeling that you’re doing something good! 🙂

HEARD

Another tip from Hayley recently was introducing me to the Penguin Podcast in a post she did recently about podcasts for book lovers. Last week on a dog walk I listened to Tom Fletcher talk about writing The Christmasaurus, which I thought was quite a nice one for the time of year. One of my sons got this book for Christmas last year so we must try to dig it out again to read before the big day is upon us. We have a pile of Christmas books in the decorations box so bedtime story-wise, we are pretty much spoilt for choice : )

MADE

This week we’ve been busy making Christmas lists – mine included (there’s nothing like looking after number one, is there?). I’ve been leaving this lying about in the hope that my husband will take notice – to be honest though, after spending ten minutes explaining to him what ‘pretty notepads’ are I’m considering just ordering the whole lot myself 😉

We also made a last minute advent activity list (also known as ‘what to do when your mum forgot to buy one of those ones with chocolate treats’). We thought up some things we could do between now and the 25th December and popped them in keepsake box. Each day we can pick out an activity to suit how much time we have – I have to say that putting it together has actually been a lot of fun! 🙂

AND LASTLY….

Next week will be my last Little Loves before the holidays – I have a couple of other pre-Christmas posts to write and I also really need to find time to fit that all-important Christmas shopping in! So for now, I’ll leave you with twinkly lights and sparkles – and thanks to the lovely tecchy people at WordPress, hopefully as you’re reading this you can also see a little bit of falling snow! 🙂

G x

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