before i start, i just want to share that i’m wearing slipper socks with large 3D santas on them (£3 from dorothy perkins and a total bargain). i’m saving my snowmen hair clips, tree earrings and large red glitter ball bobbles for tomorrow: less is more.

i hope you’re all having a great christmas eve and that tomorrow is as fab as can be, whether you celebrate or not.

now for the final yay!…

the whole shebang.

the big day: from opening presents with my lovely mum in the morning, to putting on my green jumper and all my christmassy accoutrements and eating more food than i ever thought possible, seeing relatives, giving and (YAY) receiving presents, christmas songs and films, everyone being in a good mood, chocolate and wine and falling asleep on the sofa in a coma-like state.

christmas eve and day and boxing day… it all gets a big fat yay!

gorming.

i’m planning on spending a lot of the next two weeks lying around looking gormless, not thinking about much, achieving much or wearing much in the way of non-pyjamas. i’ll read, eat, sleep, watch DVDs and just generally gorm.

i hope you can do the same.

yay!

strictly come dancing.

the final is TONIGHT and i can hardly wait! except i can, because i don’t want it to all be over for another year.

i kind of wish there could be three dancers as there would have been if things had gone as planned, but STILL. this should be a very good show, one of the best finals for years *cross fingers*. i really, really, really hope alesha wins (vote well and often, people!) but i wouldn’t begrudge it going to flavia. i mean, matt. (but really flavia). 

at least once it’s finished there’s still the xmas special on tuesday, a programme about the series next friday, and i’m going to the live show in february.

YAY!

oh come all ye faithful - sung in latin. so, so beautiful. yay!

yes, you get two today as i wasn’t here yesterday! first up…

christmas wreaths. for a loooooooooooong time i wanted a christmas wreath on the front door, but my mum associated wreaths with death and felt it was far too morbid. slowly, she changed her mind, and last year we went to buy our first wreath a couple of days before christmas. but we were thwarted! the shops were close to closing and we took a disastrous wrong turn and although we had a nice long chat, we didn’t get a wreath. so this year i was on wreath alert and yesterday, after comparison browsing to an exhausting degree, i bought what i believe to be the best christmas wreath in at least a five-mile radius. i hung it on the outside of our little porch-y area, and can see it from the kitchen, which makes me very happy. FINALLY a wreath of my own!

the tree

at LAST we put ours up on monday night, and it’s looking gorgeous. proof you don’t need to be real to be beautiful. it’s basically back-breaking work getting it all assembled and lit and tinselled and trimmed and moved into the right position, but OH so worth it.

i wish i could show you pics of the tree and the wreath, but 2007 has been the year of camera malfunctions, so just imagine them, will you?

christmas films.

from the ‘just a little festive’ to the full-blown ‘redemptive power of xmas’, christmassy films have always been a huge part of my festive celebration. from little women to sleepless in seattle, it’s a wonderful life to elf, miracle on 34th street, the santa clause and many, many, many more, i’ll sit through anything from an art house drama to a schmaltzy shmaltzpile of sentimentality, all in the name of jesus  christmas.

what’s your favourite?

christmas lights.

i put my pink heart-shaped ones up at my bedroom window today.

yay!

dads.

at the carol concert last night (which was FABULOUS, btw), compere ian mcmillan (who was just GREAT) read some of his own poems, one a very moving poem about his dad making it home from the army in time for christmas. i wanted to share it with you but can’t find it online, so i’ll just say that [unless your dad’s some kind of rum character, in which case ignore the following] dads sometimes get a hard time of it. traditionally, they’re not the nurturers, they keep their head down and work too hard and find it difficult to share their feelings and we take them for granted and think they’ll always be around… then we miss them terribly when they’re gone.

my dad hasn’t made it home for christmas for a couple of years now - but next year he will; and i know i’m lucky to be able to say that.

so a big yay! for dads!

carol concerts.

is there anything that can get you in the pre-christmas mood more effectively than a rousing good carol concert? in my opinion, nuh-uh.

that’s why i was so disappointed when we missed last week’s concert after my mum’s car broke down. it’s also why we booked to go to another one, an even BIGGER one, tonight. (and we’re going on the tram, incidentally…)

yay!