In my brain world/consciousness there are certain events that have to happen for me to feel like Christmas really is round the corner. Growing up it used to be when Mum started playing a specific album (which I downloaded last year when I was editing the script for the church Christmas production). Now there are other things, there are two adverts (one and two) that me and my Mum both look out for, the last two years I’ve been to the Royal Albert Hall for the Messiah from Scratch concert which screams Christmas (albeit it tunefully while doing an impression of an opera singer!)
14th December
Christmas officially starts with the carol service at my parent’s church. The last few years I’ve sung as part of the band, this year a visiting choir came to sing at the service. It was good fun to be in the audience instead but I think I was bugging the boys by singing along.
16th December
Next up was the Christmas Production at church, I guess it’s a nativity but there’s extended bits so it’s more of a production that just a nativity. This year I was part of the writing team, I also got cast as Elizabeth in the lead up to the Nativity bit. I was a bit reluctant to have a speaking part as I always used to go blank when I got onto the stage, whereas I can remember song lyrics most of the time.
24th December
Work started to wind down and by Christmas Eve it was really quiet. I spend most of the morning answering the phones or filing and generally keeping busy. By about lunchtime I’d finished as much as the archiving as I could do as I had ran out of archive boxes.
Following work I headed down to The Fountain as me and Jollie Rog were singing Christmas Carols to entertain the customers – in the end of a lot of customers joined in. Straight after our carol singing, Brains arrived as we were going to have a catch up while she was back for Christmas – especially as she’s moving even further away in a few weeks to start her new job. Afterwards I headed home and my in-laws had arrived for a Christmas Meal. We watched a movie before dinner then played xBox and watched another film after dinner.
25th December
Christmas Day was at home – following church we made dinner and opened presents. I got two books and three DVDs. From Mum and Dad I got a kit to make macaroons (the pretty coloured ones that seem to appear everywhere but Bedford!) and a crochet kit. My brother got me the DVD of Season 5 of The Big Bang Theory so there’s about 20 episodes or something like that on there so that will keep me occupied for a little while! We went for a walk in the afternoon then headed to my parents for tea – we then played board games.
26th December
Boxing Day started with a really lazy day, the boys went out in the morning and I spent most of the morning watching TV (Chris had got me a two month pass for Netflix as my Christmas present – I watched a whole chunk of Warehouse 13!) In the afternoon we headed over to my Mum’s house, we hung out with my family and caught up. After tea we had fireworks that my brother had saved especially for Christmas. We then played board games in the evening.
