Blogmas: 7th Dec: Decorating

I live mainly in the back room of our house, the conservatory, which we've made into a nice homely space. It's nice to be surrounded by windows rather than walls. It looks out onto our garden, which is pretty big so it doesn't feel like I'm trapped inside all the time. There's always lots of daylight and I can always see the outside world. We decided that now I'm out of hospital we're going to decorate it earlier than the rest of the house. As we get a real tree we can't put it up too early or it'll start dying before Christmas but I need some Christmas cheer so it's time to liven up the place! My Christmassy feeling has been a little dampened by my recent stay in hospital. It definitely needs rekindling with some Christmas cheer.

So I put on my first Christmas film The Santa Clause, and mum brought in all our new Christmas decorations. I attempted to help at one point but standing up didn't feel very nice so I sat on the sofa and told mum where to put it all. She'd bought me a little Christmas tree, fairy lights and decorations and I stole some of our good old decorations we usually put on the big tree. It looks really festive now and as it gets dark so early these days, it's nice to have some twinkling lights. Fairy lights are pretty posh now. We've used the same old ones for years, the ones where if a bulb goes the whole lot goes and you have to try a new bulb in all 150 plugs to figure out which one it was that blew! I secretly love doing stuff like that. I was that child who spent all day threading tiny beads onto strings just for the fun of it. There's something quite therapeutic about it. 

Now I've just got to write my Christmas cards and order all the presents and I'll be ready for Christmas! We've started getting Christmas cards through the door and I'm very excited. I only have about 6 people to send cards to so I'll have to find a way of longing out that particular activity!

Before all the hospital drama I wrote a little something for friend who's going through the same as me and blogging about it too. She posted some pre and post transplant experiences, including my experience, a couple of days ago, which are really interesting. It's certainly a good point that this festive time of giving is a great opportunity to join the organ donor list. Have a read at http://stacie-lifeisworththefight.blogspot.co.uk/

Blogmas: 5th Dec: Christmas Reads

The Christmas period is a great time to kick back with a good, easy reading book. It's December and everything must be Christmassy so here are my favourite Christmas reads.

The Night Before Christmas by Clement C. Moore
I've mentioned it before and it's a Classic. Every child must have this read to them on Christmas eve. Preferably a lovely old fashioned copy that is full of incredibly detailed pictures. The one I had as a child was illustrated by Douglas Gorsline but Christian Birmingham and Robert Ingpen both do some lovely, detailed modern alternatives. You might think children like cartoon pictures but all the books I loved as a child were beautifully illustrated.

Grimm Tales For Young And Old by Philip Pullman
This is a lovely collection of the classic Grimm tales, which as the title suggests is perfect for any age. The tales include some of the classics we all know and love along with many you will never have heard of. Pullman is one of my favourite children's writers. He has a wonderful gift for storytelling and it is shown perfectly through these short tales. It isn't strictly Christmassy but there are festive stories in there and I always feel like fairy tales have a sort of Christmas magic about them.

(Signed copy!)

The Christmas Tale of Peter Rabbit by Emma Thompson
I can't tell you how much I adore Beatrix Potter, her stories and her beautiful drawings. This new story by Emma Thompson retains the magic of the original tales in this special Christmas story full of beautiful pictures that are quite remarkably similar to Beatrix's own creations.

(Can you tell yet that my favourite module at University was Writing For Young People?)

(The Snowman (1982). Copyright Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)

The Snowman
Again, a classic. You can't have Christmas without the film but the book is beautiful too. I've called this "Christmas Reads" but I think I'm more impressed by artwork than anything else!

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
This is probably the closest we're going to get to adult literature. This story has everything and explores both the light and shade of Christmas. Dickens is famed for brilliant characterisation and storytelling. We loved him back then and we still love him now. If you've never read a Dickens book, read this one this Christmas.

A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas
If you love words, you're going to love this one. It's beyond poetic. "All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged, fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hand in the snow and bring out whatever I can find." That sentence just makes me melt. It's a beautiful read but the audiobook is lovely too so if you're pushed for time this Christmas and you love a Welsh accent this is one you can listen to. It is actually an illustrated children's book but there's no reason why anyone won't love it, and if you're Welsh, well it'd be rude not to!

Blogmas: 1st Dec: Welcome to Blogmas!

I've decided that with the amount of spare time I have on my hands it would be a good idea to do Blogmas! If you don't know, Blogmas is a bloggers challenge to write a blog post for every day of December up until Christmas. Now, I'm cheating and doing every other day and I'll explain why. Day to day I'm not the most active person and half the time I just spend my day resting. I can drive but I need someone with me to push my wheelchair so I can't just go out and do something interesting whenever I like and I think if I blogged every day I'd just end up talking about how I haven't done anything and how tired I am. And that won't be very interesting. I want Blogmas to be engaging and all the posts to be Christmas themed. I'd rather do fewer posts that are good than more that are dull!

There will be 13 posts in all, the last being on Christmas Eve and I have a very special post planned for that day! Christmas is my favourite time of year so I'm excited to write about it. Updates on my life and the surgery I'm having, and will be recovering from as you read this, will go up as normal separate posts in between my Christmas series so I hope you've got some reading time on your hands this month! 

It's finally the first of December and I can officially be obsessed with Christmas. I've been trying to keep it in so far because I don't want to get too excited too early and run out of Christmas movies and Christmassy things to do. But I'm glad I waited now because what better way to cheer me up post surgery than a million Christmas movies and songs? Bring on the festivities!

I've already started ordering Christmas presents. I can't get out on my own to buy people presents so I'm doing it all online. I know what I'm getting everyone, it's just a case of ordering it all now. I've gone slightly over the top with presents this year but I figured I'm not really paying for much these days as I don't get out a lot so why not splash out at Christmas? And I think everyone deserves thanking for everything they've done for me since my health has really declined. Christmas this year means a lot to me because I feel like we all need to have a really good time, forget about heart disease for a bit and just enjoy ourselves.

Happy 1st December! I hope your festive month has got off to a better start than mine!