And So It's December

And so it's December ... how did that happen? 

This year has whizzed by so quickly that I am determined to make the most of this, the last month of 2017.  Every year for the past few years I have done a 'Reverse Advent', sorting out things to donate to charity shops each day and giving things away.  This year I  am have gone traditional and we each have an advent calendar, me the all singing, all dancing M&S make up and toiletry filled  calendar ...

... and Alan his favourite chocolates.

Allowed as they are obviously on ration to one a day.

We are obviously doing our usual donating to charity during the Christmas season in the form of cash in collecting boxes, helping specific homeless people and always, always, always dropping food in the Food Bank trolleys that we see in all sorts of shops at this time of year.  But it's a quieter donating, and this year each day for us starts with a treat .... which I find automatically gets you in a giving sort of mood.

Soon it will be time to dig out the Christmas decorations which we traditionally put up on our wedding anniversary  (4th December), but todays December task is to empty the Sealed Pot and see what our money situation will be for next years Challenge.

December ... the last month of the year and a time to think of others, yourselves and the future.

How did your month start?

Sue xx

Christmas in December

Christmas in December, that's all I really ask for.  

Walking round Asda a few weeks ago, just into November I found myself singing along to the merry strains of Jingle Bells.  It took a minute or two for my brain to register the wrongness of this.  Looking around me though I could see exactly why they were playing this music.  For the first time the 'Seasonal' aisle was bustling with people filling their trolleys with selection boxes, Christmas sweets and tins of biscuits.  I wonder how many of them got home and thought "what are we going to have for tea tonight then".

My first Christmas purchase was this jar of candy canes last week.  I don't eat much sweet stuff these days but every Christmas I am partial to a box of candy canes.  I was going to resist this year, honest ....  indeed I did until the other day when while I was in Home bargains there were these candy canes at on a shelf in a jar that matches my large pasta jar (I just need to see if I can scratch 'Sweet Things' off the front of it), for the same price as the candy canes you get in the cardboard boxes..

I had to buy them ..... for the jar you do understand don't you   ;-)

The picture of the Pug in the top photo is a card Mum bought me ages ago, it usually sits on the shelf in the kitchen making me smile every single day, I just had to pop it next to the candy canes for the photo it just looked so right!!

Sue xx

Advent Challenge - Day 1

Every year when I was little we would get out our Advent Calenders on the 1st December.  We had one each my brother and me, old faithfuls that we used year after year.  The first year we got them Dad told us to carefully open the little doors and not to pull them off.

At the end of the Christmas holiday when the decorations came down Dad would sit and carefully close up all the little doors again and lay the calenders flat in the bottom of the decorations box and up they would go into the loft ready for next year.  The following year after 12 months of having the weight of everything else on top of them the little doors were once again firmly closed.

We didn't mind not having new ones, I think deep down we knew that the saving on buying us a new one each year meant an extra little novelty in our Christmas stocking on Christmas morning.

The sort of advent calender with little chocolates behind each door came out a little bit too late for us, so our fun was all about trying to remember which little Christmas image was behind each door, and then oohing in wonderment when we finally got to the big double doors twenty four days later, at the lovely scene of Joseph, Mary, baby Jesus and the donkeys in the stable. 

There are so many lovely Advent Calenders available to buy, all these pictures are taken from Google Images to give you an idea of what I am talking about.  There are some lovely ones that come pre-filled with sweets or gifts for you or your children to open each day in the run up to Christmas.

There are others with little drawers, sacks or compartments for you to fill yourself with mini gifts and chocolates or sweets.  Racking your brain for weeks prior to the first day of December for what to hide behind each number.

I know my boys would have loved this one ... I think I would have too.

But for me, now, all I want to do this year is give and not 'get', so I am joining in with lots of other people and having an Advent Challenge.  Instead of getting a present or opening a little door I will be giving something away each day for the whole of  Advent.  These will be good items and will be going to various charity shops, dropped off in small clusters each time I pass by one.

Along side other items sorted out in the coming weeks I hope this will take me to my 365 items needed to finish off my Decluttering 365 Challenge for this year.

To find out more about this Challenge you can visit Kate Groves' blog post at Streetbank News.  I will try and photograph the item that is leaving the house each day this month and put it on that days blog post just to keep myself on track.

This is today's.

A little colander that is terribly pretty and does work well for all it's lack of holes in the side, but that is surplus to requirements if I'm honest.  I am being ruthless through my cupboards and jettisoning anything that is duplicated in any way.

Sue xx