My Christmas - Belinda Graham

image; matchbox advent calendar, handmade and photographed by belinda graham

Yet another wonderful blogger to share their Christmas with us! How lucky are we to have the lovely (and the often irreverantly funny!) Belinda Graham, journalist extraordinaire, to let us in on a bit of her Christmas joy?! Belinda and I became in touch via her past work at Real Living magazine and my little retail space; she is writing freelance these days while playing Mama to her two little people, so if you are needing a professional to get your copy done, drop her a line, I'm sure she'd give it a good go.

Thanks for sharing with us, Belinda, I agree, your Christmas sounds pretty much perfect - we hope you had an extra special St. Nick's Day with your family!

My Christmas
My love for Christmas grows every year - I’ve always loved that magical feeling that starts around dusk on Christmas Eve and continues until you‘re drifting off to sleep on Christmas Night. As kids we’d be hanging our stockings and scattering carrots for the reindeer on the lawn and leaving some cookies out for Santa. We’d sing along to the Disney Christmas Carol CD (which we swore Dad’s voice was somehow sliced into the middle of “Partridge in a Pear Tree”) and munch on nuts in front of the glow of the Christmas tree lights. When we’d wake up (late - we were great sleepers) our parents would drag out the day to make it all last as long as possible: first dad would hide and we’d have to find him, then we’d get to open our stockings, then breakfast would be the world’s slowest-cooked breakky and we’d be teased by the pile of pressies scattered around the lounge room, trying to work out who was getting the big one. Then finally - after another Dad Hunt - we’d get to open our presents, with the biggest one to last. And mum always did something fun with it: one year it’d be a treasure hunt, the next we’d each have the end of a piece of coloured string which had wound its way around the whole house and we’d have to follow it until at last, there was a computer, a Barbie van or a bike at the end of it. And now I get to create all the fun for my own kids - and I‘m definitely going to do a present hunt of some kind; my son just turned three so is the perfect age to get excited by this kind of thing.
Christmas sort of lost its appeal as an adult, but since having children, I’m excited by it all over again. I’m looking forward to putting up the tree with them, decorating and sharing some of the traditions we had as kids, such putting up our tree and laying out our boots on December 6 (Saint Nicholas Day - my father is German), doing the advent calendars and advent candles. And decorating in a fun, cheery way – I’ve even embraced red this year! This is huge for someone who refused to let Christmasy colours in her house and only ever decorated in silver, white or gold.
We’ve also worked out a way to make the shopping less stressful for all our families: we do a Kris Kringle to a certain amount per couple amongst adults and we send off wish lists to everyone - that way we don’t know what we’re getting off the list or who it’s from, but we’re guaranteed to want, use and like it because we requested it! And for my own kids I like to try and stick to this rule I read last year: something they want; something they need; something to wear; something to read. And I’d add something to share in there because I know they’ll get something for the two of them! If we could work out an easier way to organise the family get-togethers, I’d say our Christmases are perfect!

Belinda has actually blogged about her St Nick's Day today...read it here....so cute!!!!