As you may have seen in yesterday’s post (if you haven’t read it the link is here) I didn’t really feel up to writing this post but I have – I don’t yet know if it’s turned out okay and it has turned out way better than I expected it to be and I really enjoyed writing it and I think you will like reading it! As you may have guessed from the title, this post is all about getting into the Christmas spirit. Sometimes feelings like this naturally come but to keep the momentum I like to do these five things!

Listening to Christmas music

You hear the same music every year that relates with Christmas. Not necessarily the hymns or carols but the pop songs like ‘Last Christmas’ and ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’. No matter how repetitive these songs are throughout late November and December I always love them. I have a tendency to turn on my CD player for this music and I have ‘Now That’s What I Call Christmas’ on CD and I love listening it in the none-digital way. There’s three CDs in the collection and it goes in order of the month, with the last CD having mostly New Year songs. I really love Katy Perry’s ‘Cozy Little Christmas’. Last Saturday I heard it for the first time and went out for a Costa Coffee and I felt way too festive for the end of November. Which brings us onto the next thing I do:

Drinking festive drinks

Better than the food, I always find that I have a lot more hot drinks at Christmas. Hot chocolate is also a drink associated with this season that I really love going overboard with (though marshmallows are a no-no because I’m vegetarian). Whipped cream, chocolate chips… the list goes on.

Costa probably looks to you like another way to spend a load of money but it is worth it – I like going out with friends to get the gingerbread lattes (do recommend) and hot chocolates (not tried it yet but those friends of mine say it’s nice) when it’s raining or just a bleak and cold day. I’m forever a water-only kind of person and I don’t know why, but Christmas always invites me in with warm drinks. Does it to you?

I also recommend the Spiced Chai Latte recipe from Zoe Sugg’s new book. I would love to share it with you but for legal copyright reasons I can’t. Buy the book!

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Making your own decorations

To me, I don’t really care when you put the decorations up in your home. I like to put decorations up on as soon as the 1st but that never happens. This coming weekend (the 8th) we have a chance of buying some little things for my room as it has been re-decorated this year. I only buy duvet covers and lights if I buy Christmas decorations at all. The rest of it I like to make. It brings me a bit of early Christmas. Dried orange slices and salt-dough decorations are classic. Salt-dough shapes aren’t just little kids primary school creative lessons but they can look really classy. Pinterest is a great inspiration for these things.

Baking

If you don’t have time to do creative activities like the mentioned above then it’s easy and quick to do some baking. Spiced flapjack is very easy to make and I might do a post about how to make it. It also fills the kitchen with a lovely scent as you can continue working. Getting a few friends around to put together Gingerbread Houses is something to laugh hard at and it’s very good for the competitive! I make and decorate a Gingerbread House every year and it feels painful to eat such a masterpiece (it’s not, but it’s hard work 😂).

Reading books and binge-reading blogs

This is something I wish I had a lot more time to do. I know some people who despise reading but I absolutely love it. I don’t like the whole eBook and ‘audible’ thing – I prefer to be handling the pages with my own hands. What do you think? I know there’s a lot of mixed opinion with things – and when I am doing something that can have a bit of something on in the background I prefer it to be music and not Podcasts or things like that. However, I do like some radio dramas, BBC Radio 4 is obviously the best for this. I think curling up with a book and some chocolate is a lovely way to spend an evening, it just feels so cosy and Christmassy. It’s quite therapeutic and relaxing too as I am not focusing on my world but rather someone else’s.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Binge-reading blogs is something I wish I had more time for, and if I have an hour spare where I feel really tired I will have a cup of tea and start reading all of your posts. I like blogs because you can interact with the author and show them your response immediately after reading their content. I think this is a thing YouTube lacks as there is less interaction. But anyway, YouTube is good fun.

Well that’s five things! There are definitely more – and that can be another post which spreads out the content so I have something for everyday! Thank you for reading this post, it certainly took longer to write than it has for you to read! What do you do to get into the Christmas spirit and are there any traditions you have within your family that link with this?