Our Thursday Photo #82
I am finally organising myself for Christmas.
When I say finally, I don’t mean that early December is late to start getting ready for Christmas. I mean that this is the first year I’ve ever been vaguely organised.
I’ve baked Christmas cake, bought a tree and decorations (they’re going up on Saturday) and I’ve even bought a few gifts.
I’ve been fairly overrun with work as usual and on Monday, I went to the Co-op to buy some wine. Having got to bed at around 2 am on Sunday night, I was in my usual haggard state.
I grabbed my bottle of wine and some other bits and bobs to make it look like I hadn’t gone out at 9 o’clock at night just to buy wine (you do that too right, it can’t just be me??)
Anyway, I headed off to the checkout and the girl behind the counter rang everything through and turned to me and said, “Have you got any ID?”
I fumbled around in my purse for a while and eventually said, “No, I haven’t. But I’m old enough to have a National Trust membership card, will that do?”
The cashier looked me up and down and said, “Yes, that’s fine I’ll put it through.” Flattered though I am, I think perhaps she should have gone to Specsavers.
Tuesday was the 1st of December. The girls were delighted to be able to start using their amazing advent calendar. On day one, the elves who stock the advent calendar brought them each a letter from Santa.
Both girls were so pleased to be on the nice list. The Santa letters are becoming a bit of a Christmas tradition for us and we’ll definitely be doing it as long as the girls want to. The advent calendar
will definitely be with us for many years to come as well.
I now have a little bit of a confession. The advent calendar is being used as a tool for bribery and the Santa letters just added to the convincing nature of the plot.
My friend who made the advent calendar put it in a beautiful box wrapped in Christmas paper. The advent calendar is a Christmas tree and the box sits under it.
So every morning, if the girls have been good, the elves leave a tiny gift in the box for them. It’s nothing much, the first day their letters were in there and since then they’ve had tangerines and chocolate coins.
But Libby is so excited by the whole thing that one mention of the elves will make her behave immaculately. We are using this to our full advantage.
Yesterday she spat her drink out at the table. We’re very strict on table manners, so the elves left her a snotty note this morning.
Today though, she behaved herself rather well for her flu vaccination so she’ll be having an extra gift tomorrow. This whole thing is working so well that I have no idea what we’re going to do when advent comes to an end.
Our Thursday photo #82 is from our lovely breakfast with Santa on Saturday. After Santa had left, the girls took the opportunity to climb into his grotto to compare gifts. I love this photo of the two of them chatting together.
