This Christmas I’ll Be….

As I won’t be doing a Little Loves post in December, I thought I’d share a quick round up of some of the things I’m planning over the festive season. We’ve just returned from our annual December pilgrimage to Inverness for an evening at the pantomime, which has got me feeling all the Christmas feels.

Eden Court Theatre
Eden Court Theatre Pantomime

Caithness has also been feeling very wintry this week with a busy few days of weather for Jack Frost and his band of icicles….

Winter Sea

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.

So let me tell you about some of the festive plans I have in store….

READING

This holiday season I’ll be be cuddling up with my winter reading pile from my local library, which includes The Art of Coorie: How to Live Happy the Scottish Way and Let It Snow…amongst others 🙂 .

Winter Books

I also plan to spend lots of time with highlighter pens at the ready sifting through the Christmas edition of the Radio Times.

Radio Times 2019

I’ll also be cosying up with the Reading Times, which is a round up of all the films and TV based on, or inspired by books over the festive season (all credit to a lovely librarian called Mrs Smith from Eckington School who puts this guide together annually.)

Reading Times 2019

Finally, I hope to get a copy of Charlie Mackesy’s The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse in my stocking.

The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse

Santa, I promise I’ve been good….

WATCHING

Naturally, I plan to spend a fair chunk of the Christmas holidays curled up in front of the telly with my family watching all our favourite Christmas movies. I also have a tradition of watching Gone with the Wind each year while doing the Christmas wrapping (*Gail leaves to consult TV listings and decipher whether Gone With the Wind is actually on*). The boys and I are also getting very excited about watching the final instalment of the Star Wars saga, The Rise of Skywalker – I think we’re going to love it. We’ve been refreshing ourselves on all the previous movies over the past few weekends – I anticipate tears at the finale. ‘A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….’ That’s just the first minute, and it gets me every single time!

MAKING

I’ve already made a Christmas wreath this year (is it even Christmas these days if you don’t go to a wreath-making workshop? 😉 ). It’s been taking up pride of place at our front entrance – even if the Caithness winds mean that it also spends a lot of time indoors.

Christmas Wreath 2019
Wreath on Door 2019

Over the holidays, I also hope to make all the usuals like mince pies (my go-to recipe is the BBC Good Food one) and this lovely dairy and gluten free Yule log I made last year (you can find the recipe here on the Nourishing Insights website blog).

Dairy and Gluten Free Yule Log

There might also be the baking of chocolate chip cookies and other treats in keeping with the season. I’ll be consulting our ‘winter happy list’ for inspiration (you can read about that, if you want to, in the Little Loves post I wrote last month).

Chocolate Chip Cookies
Winter Bucket List

WEARING

Over the festive season, I plan to be spending a LOT of time in the new festive jumper I treated myself to last week from Fat Face.

Gail in Christmas Jumper

And hopefully, there will be the odd bit of sparkle on display – you might remember this lovely dress I found in a charity shop last year.

And of course, I’ll be dressing my dog in his Christmas onesie as much as possible…despite his best efforts to the contrary.

Vizsla in Christmas Jumper

And who knows – there might even be the odd pyjama day once we get REALLY deep into Christmas holiday mode…..

And as those holidays are now almost upon us, all that remains for me to do is to wish you a very Merry Christmas. I’ll be taking a break from blogging over the festivities, but I’ll be back again in January with lots more of the things regular readers have come to expect.

I’ll leave you with a wish for peace, health and happiness sent to you and your loved ones.

May your days be merry, magical – and bright.

Gx

*This post contains Amazon affiliate links which means I will receive a small commission should you purchase via them.