I absolutely love the lead up to Christmas- my favourite time of year, from my November birthday onwards. I love the decorations, the lights, buying presents, wrapping them, making things…
That anticipation feeling has never left me- when I was a child, to a teenager, to an adult and when my children were small- I just love everything about it. I never believed in Father Christmas as a child and we weren’t religious, but the run up to Christmas has always been magical to me.
One of our dogs shares the absolute joy of christmas with me- her first christmas, she was four months old, and we’d just moved house- she couldn’t believe it when we brought a tree inside too! She was more excited than the children! Every year, she bounces around on christmas morning, just pure waggy-tail joy embodied. She is always the happiest dog- wrapping paper rolls also send her into a delighted dance (nearly as much as playing with water or bubbles does!).
When the children were little, we used to spread presents across the room, and with four small children, there was a LOT of presents! Now they’re older and grown up, christmas is slightly different, but still fun, and as they have their own families, it’s nice to share my memories of them at christmas with their children too! My youngest is still into lego and loves board games (if he can be persuaded away from his phone, xbox or tablet!), although he won’t play monopoly with me anymore because I always win. One of our adult boys is off traveling, our daughter is going away for a few days at christmas too, with her little girl and her boyfriend, and our oldest has two kids himself too, so this year there’s ‘just’ four of us at home- a quiet christmas perhaps!
Until my dog gets her new squeaky toy, then it won’t be quiet anymore!
