I can’t believe it’s Christmas Eve already! For some reason I was feeling really Christmassy and excited in November, but then I got really busy in December (and I forgot to buy an Advent Calendar on time so they were sold out :/ ) and time just kind of flew by and.. well, here we are.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about Christmas (it’s a bit hard not to really), and all the things and traditions I love about it, so here are my 12 favourite things:

in no particular order

•  The Muppet Christmas Carol – ever since I first saw this film, I’ve made my family watch it on Christmas Eve, and I still don’t get bored of it. It’s such a nice story, and the Muppets just make it even more entertaining!
  
  •  Baking ‘Plätzchen’ (German Christmas biscuits). I have fond memories of ‘helping’ my Grandmother a.k.a sampling the dough and cutting out the shapes, and then of course some more quality control… I had my own little rolling pin and apron too. I still bake some every year and give them to people as presents (see how to make some of my favourites here)
  • Snow! Whenever we’re lucky enough to get any, which doesn’t happen very often here, I basically revert to being a 5 year old, from making snow angels and snowmen, to sledging and simply watching it fall (it’s so hypnotising!)
  • Advent Sundays – this is another German thing I guess: you have a fir/pine Advent wreath with four red candles, which sits on the table and each Sunday in the run up to Christmas you light one more candle and have hot chocolate and Plätzchen and Lebkuchen (a bit like Gingerbread, and that’s how it’s usually translated), listen to Christmas songs and just spend a lovely afternoon preparing for Christmas…
  • Santa hats 🙂 and the fact that it’s perfectly acceptable to walk around wearing one in the street
  • Advent Calendars, especially unusual ones. For example we have a dark blue and gold one, which is a hot air balloon with Santa in it and 24 ‘sand bags’ attached to it which are filled with little surprises. I also really like it when people get creative and do things like activities, hide clues etc. for each day instead of/as well as having normal chocolate ones.
  • Christmas songs. We have ‘Rock Christmas’ Albums 1-4 and ever since I was little (when I used to ask daily towards the end of November if it was December yet and if we could put the Christmas music on) I’ve loved listening to them all, all the time, much to the delight of my family. I have a different favourite song, that I somehow notice more, each year, for example less well known ones e.g. “Little Christmas Tree”, or “Stop the Cavalry” and one year “Little Drummer Boy” (I was about 5 and invented this game…my brother and I would each stand on a sofa and everytime “Ba rum pum pum pum” was mentioned you had to swap sofas). I also really like the traditional songs, especially the German ones I used to play on the recorder.
  • Nikolaustag. This is another German thing, a bit like Christmas stockings really I suppose.On the 5th December, you have to make sure your shoes are really clean and polished and you put one outside the/your door. If you’ve been good, St. Nicholas will pay a visit and you will find it full of treats including chocolate santas, oranges, sweets and little toys. If not, theoretically you get a lump of coal and a birch twig/branch..but I’ve never known anyone who that has happened to.
  • Christmas stories. I recently found some of my old childrens’ books, including the Christmassy ones and they’re so sweet. Like the one with the woodland animals whose ‘letterbox’ for their Christmas wishes, an old oak tree, has disappeared… And in general, you just hear nice stories about some of the sweet things people do at Christmastime, and it sort of restores your faith in human nature a bit after hearing so many horrible things on the news
  • This one is probably a bit clichéd but I love it when we get a chance to visit family. Mine is spread far and wide so I don’t get to see them all very often, and I do miss spending Christmas with all my cousins and other relatives.
  • Giving someone a really great present, whether it’s just thoughtful, or unexpected, or (especially when I was small) homemade and you put a lot of effort into it, and seeing their face when they open it. This even happened to me fairly recently, two Christmases ago when we went to Germany to spend Christmas with my Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and Cousins (and it snowed!), and I had made a really pretty clay trinket box at school with my Grandparents’ house on it for my Grandpa, and one with roses (of which they have lots in their garden) for my Grandma.
  • The anticipation. Again, this is probably more fun when you’re little, but some days you do feel really excited about it, and that makes all the rush and hassle worthwhile somehow..

So for now I wish you all a very Merry Christmas (and if I don’t post again before then, Happy New Year!)