Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Hope that everyone reading this is having a lovely day, that Santa has been good to you and that you're spending your time with the people you love.

I've really enjoyed having friends stop by the blog in the run up to Christmas this year. I'm thinking I might have some more guest bloggers in the future. It's been fitting somehow, as I always think of Christmas as a time for people to come together and I've had some virtual visitors to my little spot on the web.

So I decided to answer the questions that I set for each of my guests this month, because it's been fun to see the similarities and differences in the way that people celebrate the holidays.

1. Let's start at the beginning. What's your earliest memory of Christmas?

I remember wearing a blue velvetty dress when I must have been about two or three and looking at the Christmas tree. I loved the lights and there was something about the smell of the tinsel as well. Even now when I smell that sort of musty, crinkly tinsel smell I remember the tree being so much taller than me and the excitement of all these presents appearing underneath it.

2. Do you or your family have any special Christmas traditions? Are there any that you'd like to start in the future?

Mr Click and I got married on Christmas Eve so our anniversary has become a bit of a Christmas tradition in that we exchange a Christmas tree decoration each year as an anniversary gift. It was something we started before we got married so now we have a selection of ornaments, each one with a special meaning. Since we've been married we try to tie the decorations to the material of that year's anniversary gift. Last's fruit and flowers theme was a bit tricky, this year was wood which was a lot easier to find!

In the future I'd like to get an advent calendar with pockets or drawers that we can put slips of paper with Christmas/winter activities into. I like the idea of having things like 'Make paper snowflakes' or 'Drink hot chocolate with marshmallows' but not knowing which will come out on which day. I'm just looking for the perfect advent calendar to use for it.

Oh, and and I suppose that watching every film in our massive Christmas film collection in the run up to the big day counts as one of our traditions too.

3. When do the decorations go up in your house? When do you take them down?

When I was younger it used to be the first weekend after the 2nd of December (so we could get my Nan's birthday out the way), now I'm in my own place we get them up on the 1st and don't take them down until the very last day, Twelfth Night. I have great fun decorating the house and the tree and start planning in November where everything is going to go. My dream is for my house to look like the children's toy department in Elf!

4. You're sitting down to Christmas dinner, what's on your plate?

The traditional Christmas turkey, roast potatoes, stuffing, parsnips, sprouts, the works. I was vegetarian for about six years and when I decided that the time had come to start eating meat again, it was in the run up to Christmas so I could have turkey on Christmas Day.

Last year when Mr Click's parents did a capon for Christmas dinner instead of turkey, I had Mr Click cook us a roast dinner of our own the week before to make up for it so I wasn't going completely without!

5. How about some favourites? What's your all-time favourite Christmas song?

This is such a hard question to answer, which is silly, because I wrote it. I've got roughly five hundred Christmas songs on my Kindle at the moment, but if I have to pick just one then it would have to be White Christmas.

I am especially partial to the way that Taylor Swift does it.

6. It's not Christmas until you've watched which film?

We've got over thirty Christmas films and we watch all over them each year through November and December. It's really a tie between my two favourites: White Christmas and Muppet Christmas Carol. When I was in Halls at Uni I sat in my room in the last couple of weeks of term, watching White Christmas on my laptop, feeling really ridiculously emotional and homesick. I'd never really been that fussed for it up until then, but something made me fall in love with it that night.

And I've watched Muppet Christmas Carol every year in the build up to Christmas, including the year when I spent Christmas in America with my Uncle and his family. I know the whole thing off by heart... because I'm weird like that.

7. Do you have a favourite book to read at Christmastime?

I have two. One is Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol which I used to read in bed on Christmas Eve until I got old enough to have busy things to do on Christmas Eve and so now I read it as soon as December strikes. The other is J.R.R. Tolkien's Letters to Father Christmas which we used to get out of the library when I was little and have two beautiful editions of depending on whether I'm reading it at home, or leaving the house with it.

8. You can spend this Christmas anywhere, anytime, with any person. Describe it.

I love the idea of renting out some big old manor house or castle somewhere in the middle of nowhere and having a massive family Christmas with my family and Mr Click's. We'd all get up and younger family members could do stockings (and some of the not-so-young family members could have one too) then have breakfast all together at a big long table. Then more presents together in a big room with a big tree and fire place. Perhaps walks together before dinner, then snuggling up to watch the Doctor Who Christmas Special in the evening while we eat more food and play with our new toys.

All I have to do is win the lottery and it will totally happen.

9. Dear Santa, this Christmas I would like...

I'd quite like to have a little person to share future Christmases with. Miracle on 34th Street has taught me that this is a bit of a tall order and there is some waiting involved, so I'm willing to wait a while longer. I'll also echo Mr Click here and say that having a White Christmas would be lovely, this year would be perfect for it, since I'm off work until Monday which gives us plenty of time for a little smattering of snow that can clear away before it gets too inconvenient.

Thanks for stopping by this Christmas. Now go eat turkey, give gifts, play with your new things and hug your family.