Wednesday

Good morning.  It's another cold morning but nothing like as frosty as yesterday.  I do rather like these bright and white starts to the day when everything looks so clean and frosted.

Thank you all very much for your lovely comments yesterday.  I'm feeling a bit better today, not 100% but definitely on the mend.  I've cancelled personal training, sadly, but it means I can continue to rest and relax and, hopefully, will be back to normal tomorrow.  Son, Dave, is coming round for a chat and to show off his operation scar this afternoon so that will be lovely.

I had a lot of time to think yesterday and I was pondering over things I need to do for Christmas and things I would like to do.  I fear I am a bit childlike where the festive season is concerned.  It might go right back to childhood with beloved family traditions making it both familiar and exciting and later it was certainly helped both by making traditions for my own family and also creating a memorable time for my little students in school.

Since retirement, I no longer have the familiar school/class traditions and, with my Mum's illness and death, many things have gone by the board.  That's OK, things do change and I have long recognised that not everyone in the family holds the same things dear.  In a way, I now have more control than ever I had and I intend to make the most of it while I can.

Christmas this year is going to be relatively low key but it's still going to be fab because really it starts in the mind and in my mind, I am excited.

I've decided that I will make my own Advent event.  Every day from the first to the twenty fourth, I will do something specifically Christmassy and I've put together a sheet to record this, starting with the beginning of burning my advent candle and opening the first bauble in my online Jacquie Lawson Advent Calender as well as visiting the Christmas and Craft shops at Blackthorpe barn because I will have spent the weekend in Bury St Edmunds.

Here's what I've got so far.

The blank days will be filled with things.  It might be as simple as putting out some candles or it might involve some kind of food prep such as making and freezing the pigs in blankets but whatever it is, I will do it with a sense of celebration, spirituality, festivity and sheer joyousness.

Also, I think I will do what I've done before and post a link each day to some favourite Christmas music.  Christmas seems to inspire and there's so much lovely stuff of all styles and genres to share around, isn't there?

There will also be charitable giving, both local and national, but that remains private between donor and recipients!  :-)

What is your favourite Christmas thing?