Top Ten Thursdays - Holiday Season Checklist

This week's top ten Thursday is all about what we need to do to be prepared for December with Christmas fast approaching and 2017 looming. Rudolph will be coming out of hibernation to help Santa deliver all his pressies to boys and girls of all ages all over the world.

Here is my list in a fairly random order - things I need to do and others I want to do to make this festive season extra special.

1. Christmas Tree: shockingly I haven't got our tree up yet!! It usually goes up on December 1st but we're having the dilemma of how to protect the tree from a certain puppy who I'm sure would see it as a giant chew toy.

2. Wedding Anniversary: two weeks before Christmas is our anniversary so need to get a suitably appropriate present for my beloved and think about what we're going to do to mark 17 fabulous years.

 3. Christmas Cards: I know a lot of people have gone to e-cards and online social media greetings, but I still enjoy choosing Christmas cards, writing a Christmas letter, and sending it to the people I love. It may be old fashioned to some but it's a tradition that I want to keep.

4. Christmas Markets: we need to find some more Christmas markets/festivities as they really help me get in the spirit of things. I love all the colour, the smells, the fairy lights, the decorations that at any other time of the year we would not go near, and I really enjoy people watching.

5. Baking: I love making sweet treats for people but especially at this time of the year. I also must make mum's Christmas pudding which is the yummiest pudding ever - it takes four hours to boil in the cloth and always looks a bit dodgy when I take it out of the cloth, but we love it.

6. Reinrabbit: this is our lovely creature that mum made for us years ago that is meant to be a reindeer but we think he looks like a rabbit, so we've decided he's a bit of a mongrel with slightly dodgy parentage. Some years we leave him out all year so that he doesn't get lonely, but he's in hibernation now so we need to wake him up this weekend (yes, I'm still totally crazy).

7. Advent Calendar: I'm so not organised this year and haven't set up the advent calendar yet, so as it's December 1st I had to be door number one so that Ken could get his treat for today (and now get your mind out of the gutter, his treat was chocolate).

8. Calm: in amongst the busyness of this time of the year we need to take some time to just stop and reconnect with the one's we love, whether human or furbie. If you need to write it on your checklist to make sure you do this then do so.

9. Christmas Movies: definitely on my checklist of things to do is make sure I watch certain movies around Christmas time. Dad's favourite was any National Lampoons movie but they're not on my list. My favourite is Scrooged starring Bill Murray - it never fails to make me laugh and I love Carol Kane as the Ghost of Christmas Present. Here's a short clip from Youtube for you to enjoy.

10. Blog posts: In between everything I still need to spend time with my lovely purple laptop writing about our days of fun and giving you my top tens. I love sharing things with those of you that bother to read my ramblings and hope my posts bring the occasional smile to your face.

So there you have it, my slightly odd checklist of things to do to prepare for this very busy but very fulfilling month. Why don't you pop over to Tamara's blog Confessions of a part-time working mom to see what my fellow bloggers have come up with - click HERE to visit.

Until next time, be good, stay safe, and enjoy the coming weeks.

Pamela & Ken

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