Christmas Countdown!
I love Christmas. I always have. One of my favorite memories as a young child is decorating the house. My dad would go up into the attic to get the decorations and the tree down which was usually after much begging and pleading from me as I was always dying to get the place Christmassy as early as possible. I still remember the excitement as he would pass down the black bags full of Christmas stuff to us.Our tree was a green plastic artificial one that came in three or four pieces and had to be assembled one piece on top of the next. In all honesty it was nothing special but to me I loved it, it was perfect. We had brightly coloured lights and every year, without fail they would never work when first plugged in. It would take several attempts of going over and back tightening and checking each and every bulb before they would light up. We had colourful glittery tinsel and a random collection of decorations, my favourites being three plastic Santas, an angel and of course the most special of all, the star for the top. I love when I go back to my parents home at Christmas now and my mom still has all the same decorations (well, that is the ones that have survived) hanging on the tree - they bring back such wonderful memories of Christmases gone by. I want Ben to have memories like this.
This year we decided to get into the Christmas mood a bit earlier than usual and kicked it off with a visit to see Santa Claus at Harrods. It is lovely there this time of year - it just oozes with Christmasness from the fantastic window displays, the stores decorations, the amazing Christmas shop with it's fabulous decorations and teddies to of course, Santa's grotto. This years theme for the grotto is the Gingerbread Man, the waiting area for the grotto is filled with little moving wooden toys, twinkling lights, spinning stars and rotating screens with pictures of gingerbread men and women, candy canes and various other gingerbread man themed images. Ben was pretty overwhelmed by all he had to see during the wait, he kept pointing at things saying lots of "Look Mama, Dada" and uttered countless "wow's". When we got our chance to meet Santa himself Ben was a little quiet at first, that was until Santa handed him a giant gold chocolate button and a badge. The whole experience was lovely, Santa chatted happily away with us and we had a few photographs taken after which he gave Ben a book - The Gingerbread Man.
Look Mama, Dada! Wow!!
Once we got home it was decoration stations. Every year I love rediscovering all the fantastic things we have accumulated as a family over our Christmasses together from the Disney snow globe my husband gave me the first Christmas after we were married, Ben's first Christmas bauble, our Christmas bears to the special glass decorations for the tree which range from Santa on a train to a yellow rubber duck - special things and some which hold such special memories. Ben immediately got in on the decorating action this year and he impatiently grabbed at the baubles wanting to get them on the tree as quickly as possible. He was ever so pleased when he realised that the little purple foil squares hanging from the tree were in fact chocolate and manage to scoff three before we had them all relocated out of his reach needless to say we had a very hyper over excited toddler on Saturday night!Someone found chocolate!
I can safely say it is definitely starting to feel a lot like Christmas here and I have a feeling it is going to be a good one. Now next on my hit list is to get the Christmas cards written on time this year..