Ready to open the Advent calendars…

The excitement is reaching fever pitch in this household as tomorrow is the day that they can open the first door on their advent calendars.

It’s the one time of year that they are actually allowed to eat chocolate first thing in the morning (yes, I’m one of THOSE mean mums who only allows ‘proper’ breakfasts when it’s not Christmas!) so the calendars are even more anticipated.

Which means there’ll probably be a stampede of little feet down the stairs at daft o’clock tomorrow morning in order to get at the chocolate, and I’ll come downstairs to chocolate smeared faces.

They’re equally lucky this year as they’ve wound up with TWO advent calendars each. One from us, and their Great Grandma got them one as well, so double the chocolate.

Oh, and here’s mine…

A Christmas joke behind each door instead of a chocolate to make people either giggle or groan..

What do elves learn at elf school?

The Elfabet!

Boom, boom…

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Hastings locals moaning as Chesney Hawkes set to turn on Christmas lights

Residents of Hastings, East Sussex, have got their knickers in a right twist this week because they have the one and only cheesy Chesney Hawkes booked to turn on the Christmas Lights.

Some of the locals deem him ‘not famous enough’ and one even said they’ll do a “Go Away Chesney’  campaign if he turns up.

Aww, poor Chesney. What a load of miserable, bah humbugs. Even the Grinch of Christmas himself has nothing on them.

I would have thought good old Chesney was a great type of person to entertain the crowds and get them all singing along. Who can resist a bit of sing-a-long cheesy music? The One and Only was a classic 90′s cheesy tune!

The closest we ever get here to someone famous is local councillors or sports mascots. If Chesney turned up here next year, I’d be up front singing along to all the words

Swap with you, Hastings. You’ve got it made. Now go sit in the corner with your “Bah Humbug” hats on and take a good long look at yourselves…

 

Chesney Hawkes newspaper article

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A Christmas Elf coming to stay? Er, no.

I love Christmas and everything that comes with it, from decorating the tree to the counting down on the advent calendars.

I giddily wonder when I can feasibly get away with watching Elf without it being classed as too early,  and if it’s near enough Christmas (which turned out to be yesterday, actually.)

I try and last out until the 1st of December before having my first mince pie of the year. (Yes, they’ve been on sale in Sainsbury’s for what seems like months, but it would just be WRONG now. Plus I’d be sick of the sight of the bloomin’ things by mid December if I started on them now, and I can’t be having that.)

I even wear my cracker paper party hat and tell everyone else at the table that they have to wear theirs as well. Yes, I’m that annoying person. Just hope you haven’t got a party tooter thing in your cracker or I’ll be tooting that as well.

A Christmas Elf coming to stay for the duration of the holidays though? You what? Isn’t that taking the whole thing to a new, and OTT level?

I heard about these a while back, and it seems to be the new ‘in’ thing.

For those blissfully unaware, it’s where you have one of Santa’s elves come and stay with you over December, and it does either naughty and nice things each day.

One day it’ll have you baking cookies, the next day it’ll have been naughty over night and chucked crisps around your living room while the children have been asleep or something.

Some days it brings presents.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but that sounds like an awful lot of bloomin’ hard work. lazy arse

Plus, it completely reminds me of when the 5 year old had to bring a class doll home for the week when he was at toddler group and we were supposed to do stuff with it, and fill in the doll’s diary of her week’s holiday at your house. Then take photos and stuff.

Stuff like “I’m REALLY enjoying my weeks stay at so and so’s house. Here’s a picture of me sat in the Asda trolley doing our weekly shop.”

(Yeah, like I want to cart a daft looking doll around everywhere I go. I’ll look like a mad old bag lady.)

I had to fight a mad urge not to take pictures of it lying on the sofa surrounded by empty wine bottles and a speech bubble coming out of it’s head saying ‘Hic, BURP.’

Same goes with the elf. I don’t want a batty old elf sitting around on the shelf at home. 24 days of thinking up something new for it to do up until Christmas Eve?!

Pfft.

It’s all getting a bit much now. Aren’t Santa’s sacks full of toys or stockings enough nowadays? Presents from an elf each day who’s got lost on the way to the North Pole or whatever is a bit excessive.

Do you do the Elf thing, or have you heard of it before?

 

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The run up to Christmas….

As it’s now officially November, I’m starting to allow myself to get a little bit giddy at the thought of Christmas around the corner.

I might have been moaning back in August here that it was just too bloomin’ early (and hot!) for the shops to start selling Christmas cards, but after the festivities of Bonfire Night it’s more than acceptable to start looking forward to Christmas.

Last week I was writing my name in the air with sparklers, this week I’m thinking about Christmas presents.

I’m starting to feel the urge to watch Elf, or the Snowman but am trying to hold out until it’s at least the 1st of December, as according to the small people, that’s when we’re allowed to watch Christmas stuff as it’s then officially the festive season.

Likewise with mince pies. I could quite easily start eating them now, but have decided I can’t eat them just yet because I’ll probably be sick of the sight of the things by the time Christmas Eve rolls around.

The adverts have started on the telly, and no doubt the Coca Cola truck advert with Santa on will be hitting the televisions soon.

Then it really IS the run up…….

 

 

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Travelling in the car with children……

It doesn’t matter where we are or where we’re going, it seems all my two seem to do lately in the back of the car is fight.

Within about two seconds of the car door slamming shut, and us tootling off down the road, IT STARTS.

The annoying each other.

One of the most annoying childhood games since time began seems to be the favourite at the moment.

You know, that one where whatever one says, the other one has to copy EXACTLY what the other says.

Child one – “Do you know what I did at school today?”

Child two – “Do you know what I did at school today?”

Child one – “No, I’m asking you a question.”

Child two – “No, I’m asking YOU a question.”

One – “Mummy, he’s annoying me!”

Two – “Mummy, he’s annoying me!”
and so on, and so ON.

I don’t know who it was who invented that timeless game in the first place, but they need to be taken out the back and shot. With a great big gun. Twice.

It’s even worse when you’re in a traffic jam, and there’s no escape.
Just the incessant whining. Or poking at each other. Poke. Prod. Pinch.

Followed by tears and the inevitable “waaaaaahhhhh he hurt me!”

I’ve become expert in distraction techniques, with such ‘fantastic’ ahem   games such as:

“The Numberplate Game”

(also known as see how many numberplates you can see with starting with the letter A, Z, whatever game.)

The shout out when you see a lorry game.

“First one to see a Marks and Spencer lorry, say AHH!”

Or you can’t beat a good old rendition of “the wheels on the car go round, and round, round and round”…

Well it sure beats chucking myself in front of the good old Marks and Spencer lorry’s wheels.

Give me strength….

 

If you’re in a car, these do prove invaluable though.

If you’re needing a car and some car hire in the UK there’s here for all your needs.

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The Queen v the busy mum’s guide to getting dressed…

The Queen’s personal dresser,  Angela Kelly, has been sharing secrets of the Queen’s wardrobe over in one of the newspapers today.

Apparently, if you’re her Majesty, not only do you have someone to plan the exact number of beads that are to go on a dress, you even get your hat width planned so that there’s no unfortunate (and very undignified) hat bashing as you get out of the Royal car.

It must be lovely to have someone there on hand to tell you what to wear, and when, rotate your outfits and even match you to the local fittings of wherever it is you’re going to.

(No clashes with the sofas, here. .)

It’s a bit of a far cry from a usual morning of getting dressed in this house.

After wrestling cajoling with the small people to get their school uniforms on, it’s time to think about me getting dressed.

Sadly, no team of people rotating my clothes in order of when I last wore them (what do you mean, I wore the same clothes yesterday as I am today? Aren’t I allowed?! Oops)

Is it clean? Yep, it’ll do.

Cue the mad scramble for book bags before the walk to school…..

I think the Queen’s got the right idea. Now just lend me some of her cash and I’ll pay someone to think for me as well, as I think I need it…

 

A peek inside the Royal Wardrobe – one wants one’s own Angela Kelly!

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