Journal Your Christmas day 7 - sensory overload

Ha! Today is a day to take stock of what your senses are up to. Interesting for me because we've a trip to the dental hospital this morning to see the consultant orthodontist about braces. And also to check a funny swelling that developed last week above her empty socket. Which has largely gone since a little hard thing came out of it yesterday. Anyways.....

I am
Seeing: tail lights and traffic queues. The Forth Road Bridge is closed and despite the media reports it effects much more than just Edinburgh and Fife. My town is very close to the other bridge(s) over the Forth and it has just taken us 40 minutes to do a 10 minute journey out of town.

Hearing: a screaming child. Not mine, hoorah! The dental hospital is a big, scarey place when you're little. And not-so little.

Smelling: that antiseptic smell. We all know the one - hospital issue disinfectant and soap. Although the dental hospital smells different to the general hospital. Does sickness have a scent?

Tasting: my favourite - an egg piece! Spouse viciously hates egg mayo sandwiches (just the smell sets him off) but he was super crabby this morning so I bought it anyway. #smallrevenges

Feeling: exhausted but chuffed. The orthodontic consultant thinks that 2 years of braces is a lot for what equates to very little gain right now. She might need them in a few years but if we're lucky then not at all. And certainly not now. So the ball is bounced right back to the paediatric consultants to see about a bridge. Yay!!

And the little hard nugget from the gum? Either a piece of tooth or bone left over from the extraction in September. Weird but wonderful your body is!  And weird is my Christmas countdown. #sorrynotsorry

Journal Your Christmas day 6 - cosy

This was me this afternoon post horse riding (a much longer journey than usual due to the alternate routes being taken by people feeling the effects of the Forth Road Bridge closure. I live fairly close to the other bridge...) and lunch. I really really wanted to just stay on my couch with Jones and watch Sunday afternoon telly. But makes still need made so off to the salt mine wee room I went.

I can't show you anything I've been making (soon!) but see my list! Ten days ago I had one cross out, I'm quite chuffed with how this is looking!

And after the ironing I was settled again with some supper, the final of "I'm a Celebrity" (Chook loves it) and the other cat. 

Chook decided we would have a chappie cup*, soldiers and hot chocolate. Good plan!! And a better late than never cosy, contented interlude. With the added warm fuzzies of finishing another gift inbetween cat cuddles. 

* this is known as a switchie cup in my family. A boiled egg peeled and chopped up in a cup with salt, pepper and butter. I do them in the microwave, though, saves the pesky egg boiling timing!

Journal Your Christmas day 5 - Chrimbo Correspondence

I hate sending Christmas cards. There. I've said it. It's just something else to do at this time of year. Several times I've said "right, no cards this year" and contemplated which charity to donate the cost of stamps and cards to. Because despite being a keen (if lapsed) paper crafter I don't do cards. Certainly not in multiple numbers. 

But every year it gets to about 2 weeks before Christmas and I have a sudden crisis of conscience. Will I look rude? What if someone reads more into it than my laziness? Wasn't it nice to hear from so-and-so? And I have a mad rush of buying, writing and posting cards. No, mine don't look as amazing as this.

Maybe this year I'll be more with it. Although it's less than three weeks to go and this is genuinely the first time I've thought about them. So probably not. Next year, perhaps? 

Journal Your Christmas - planning

I am a planner at heart. A maker of lists and generally pretty organised - Christmas is normally no exception. I'm not a Christmas Eve "mañana" shopper; ideally I like the majority of my shopping done by the start of December. Despite the makes still to be finished this year (four and counting - although two are birthday gifts) I only have one gift left to buy. I enjoy wrapping presents in the weeks before Christmas so having them on hand helps this immensely!

And then there's the little things I try and do every year. Two  of my favourites involve extra gifts for Chook -  Santa's Elves' Jammies and the Christmas Eve bauble box. 

Tradition goes that on Christmas Eve, while Chook is in the bath, the elves visit and if she's been a good girl they leave new  jammies wrapped up on her pillow. We've done it since she was about 4 and she was always told to listen out for the bells on their hats. So often I was trying not to break my neck jingling a bell outside the bathroom door and running downstairs (silently!!) to sit nonchalantly on the couch before she could scramble out the bath! I still jingle the bells, she just takes it as "time to get out!" now.  But I have learned to buy the Jammies early - and this year is especially difficult since child sizes are often too young (even if they will fit) and she's a bit slender yet for adults.  I think I've done it, though!

And the bauble box? Well it sits on our tree from when it is decorated and at some point during December a small gift is popped inside. Or the first clue of a treasure hunt if it's a larger sized gift. She gets to open it after her Christmas Eve bath - in her new jammies! But Spouse usually sorts this one, he spends weeks musing over what to get her most years. I think it's a cool one this year!

Journal Your Christmas day 3 - greatest gifts

Memory is a fickle, fickle mistress, is she not? When I was 9 all I wanted for my birthday was a My Little Pony grooming parlour. You can see why, no? Look at Twinkles the cat!

(This photo is not mine - my parlour has been gone for  almost 30 years. But it bugs me a little coz that's not Butterscotch the pony, it's Peachy!)

This was 1983 and MLP were brand new in the shops (or not, as my parents were about to discover) and the adverts were all over the summer holiday telly - my birthing day is in August. Of course, Britain (and Scotland) being behind the times was maybe showing toys as "available in your local retailer, NOW!" but that didn't mean to say the local toy shop actually had any in stock. Or could get any at their stockists. Or that there were any in the actual country, for that matter. *blinks* So no dice on the parlour for my birthday, then. I must have been given something lovely instead (I always did) but that Christmas my Mum was determined I was getting the damn Grooming Parlour if she had to make it herself. And she got one and I loved it for many years. But can I remember that Christmas with my longed-for toy? I cannot. I mean, I have vague, dark memories of opening the box and seeing all the wonderful little pieces but that's about it.

What is MUCH clearer is receiving this the following year when I was 10. The My Little Pony Show Stable. *fanfare*

(Also not my photo. Although I think my Mum might have one of all my ponies somewhere.)

I'm not sure why this year is so much clearer than the one before. Maybe it's because we had moved house and the new living room was physically brighter so my memory is, too. Maybe it's simply that I was a year older. But I think what might lodge it in there as my strongest childhood Christmas gift memory is my little brother.

Now, Oor Kid is a lot younger than me (over 7 years) and was born in December. And I doted on him. The greatest gift though? Bleeeurgh. Hardly.  (You didn't actually think I was going there, did you? *grins*) So the year of the Stable he was 3 and in that fab stage where they really get Christmas. And he'd been happily ensconced on his side of the living room opening his own presents as I sat on the other side of the fireplace opening mine. And I was doing that leaving-the-best-til-last thing so the big box that I knewandhopedandpleaseplease was my Stable was still all wrapped up as I oohed and aahed over little trinkets and bubble bath and the like. And then the moment was here and I was going to agonisingly pick off the sellotape and reveal in breathtaking slow motion my fab new toy. And then the toddler brat skipped over the room and tore the paper off.

I. Was. Not. Amused.

I mean, no biggie, right? And I got right down to opening all the wee packets of ribbons and bridles and Sandy the Dog and the pesky brother faus pas was forgotten. But I think that might be why this is my shiniest Christmas morning memory. She is a fickle, fickle mistress right enough.

Journal Your Christmas day 2 - Scarey Clause

The only times as a child I remember meeting Santa Clause for the traditional "sit on my knee little girl" experience were at the annual Christmas parties held at my Grandmother's work. I'm sure there must have been others but I cannot for the life of me remember them. I was a shy child who was often too timid to join in party games so meeting a strange man with an obvious fake wig beard and having to sit on his knee and talk to him while everyone else watched was not something I enjoyed especially. But, y'know, the rest of the party was great. I'm sure there was food and music and the rest. But what I remember was the dread of having to get close to Scarey Clause.

And twenty-odd years later in 2004? I have a photo of a tearful Chook being carried up to meet Scarey Santa at her playgroup party. Mini-Me right enough. *g*

My poor wee Mum, doing the tearful festivities all over again!

Journal Your Christmas day 1 - an early sign and a manifesto

Some of you will know that for 5 or 6 years my main (only!) hobby was scrapbooking. This was back when Chookie was a baby but by the time she started school my scrapping was rapidly diminishing and these days I am pretty much reduced to a birthday and Christmas layout every year. 

Now, one of my very favourite "celebrity" scrappers is Shimelle Laine and every year for the past decade she has a "Journal Your Christmas" class running from December the 1st. And this is the first year I have been unable and, yes, unwilling to resist the urge to sign up. So I did. Not like I have anything else to be doing right now, right? Like making an entire quilt, knitting a hat, figuring out how to make a guitar strap. Oh yeah, those socks..... *coughs*  Sooo. What this means is that I'm attempting to blog every day following the prompts and we'll see how it goes. Because I love Christmas and all the prep and pomp and even a bit of the stress that goes into it. I'd dearly love to be stickin' an' gluein' in a handmade journal but lets not be utterly ridick, right? Mebbes next year. (I like your manifesto, put it to the testo.... name that tune!!)

Day 1 - an early sign of Christmas.

In 2002 I had a 6 month old baby with a festive moniker (for those of you not in the know, Chookie's passport name is Holly) and bought a brand spankin' new 6 foot Christmas tree. I have always had artificial trees because I hate the irregularity of real trees' branches for decorating purposes! So I had my brand new tree and on the evening of December 1st up it went. And up then it has gone every year since. Some years a day early (if the 1st fell on a Monday then the Sunday would be spent in a happy haze of slightly lofty smelling boxes and baubles) but until last year without fail every December 1st my tree was up. Last year? Well last year I was stranded in Iceland for 24 hours and didn't get home until the early hours of the 2nd! But the first sign , for me, that Christmas is really coming (I'm not including the Coke advert!) is putting up the tree.

And perversely now that I've said that? Mine won't be going up today. It's a crazy busy day today with work, lunch with Mum, sewingsewingsewing and Muckhart Quilters tonight and I enjoy tree trimming far too much for it to be a rushed chore. So it will probably wait until the weekend now. But Chook got hers up last night!

 There are hardly any blue ornaments in the shops this year but she still managed to find a few to add to her collection. She might need a bigger tree next year!