On the third day of Christmas

Some people love Christmas movies.  Some people love Christmas food.  I love Christmas music.  It really gets me in the mood for the season.  This year, I heard a bit of Carols from King's and it was so beautiful!  I have a few Christmas-y albums; A Very Ally (McBeal) Christmas, The Number 1 Christmas Party Album, Love Actually (the soundtrack), Amy Grant's Spirit of Christmas.  And this year, I bought Carols from King's and Michael Buble to the list.  Andy bought the Crash Test Dummies Christmas album, it includes the creepiest version of Jingle Bells you've ever heard!  And a really cool Good King Wenceslas too.

My favourites are O Holy Night (Night Divine) and I Don't Want A Lot For Christmas (Mariah Carey, or the kid from Love Actually, I'm easy).  But to be honest, it doesn't really matter if it's classical, pop, swing or rock, I'm a fan of the songs that make me feel like Christmas.  And if the downside is playing Jingle Bells on repeat for a month, and listening to Isaac sing along, well that's a small price to pay!

On the second day of Christmas

We have a lovely purple artificial tree that we bought when we were first married.  Most of our decorations date from around the same time.  There's no real theme or pattern, just a mishmash of colours and patterns that I love.  I really like how pretty it looked with simple white lights.  Can you tell I'm not a fan of tinsel?!

Some of the ornaments have come from a tree my sister and I used to have in our bedroom at home when we were teenagers.  Others were made this year by Isaac at his childminders.  We have a beautiful turtledoves bauble that was a gift a few years ago.  I spent ages trying to find a star for the top of our tree.  I wanted something simple but not too small.  Definitely not a fairy, and not an olde-style angel.  I found this one 2 or 3 years ago and it's almost perfect.

We had a wreath on our front door last year but it's become worn and damaged over the years.  I looked around for one to replace it this year but couldn't find anything quite right.  Andy favours something with pine branches, whereas I'm all for small neon baubles.  Maybe next year we'll find something that suits us both!

Our stockings are handmade, though not by me.  I bought stockings for Andy and I years ago from a seller on notonthehighstreet.com and ordered a matching one for Isaac's first Christmas.  Sadly, she wasn't accepting new orders by the time I tried after having Anna last year and I can't find her or her stockings anywhere online.  So I found a similar-sized personalised stocking on the same site from a different seller this year.

I love nativity scenes and I love the idea of having them scattered around the house in the run-up to Christmas.  This little crocheted set came from Just, a fairtrade shop in St Martins Square, Leicester.  The wise men's gifts are folded crisp packets!

On the first day of Christmas

This has been the first year that Isaac has been able to understand the concept of numbers and time, the counting down of Advent, waiting for Christmas to come.  We explained to him that Christmas is Jesus' birthday and so there would be presents and yummy food and lots of family time.

Andy's aunt has made advent wall hangings for both our children and I found a great Playmobil nativity set to put in the little pockets.

Over the course of 20 days (I was a little late getting started and we finished before Christmas Day - the logistics of transporting the whole thing to my parents' overwhelmed me), Isaac had great fun finding the number for each day and picking out a new little character or creature.

Is it just us or does baby Jesus look a lot like Luke Skywalker?!