You won’t be able to come with me… when I go into space. I’m going to be the first priest in space.

Hello all, and happy Christmas! I hope you all had a wonderful day, whatever you were doing. I had a lovely day full of Prosecco, food and family. It was great. My brother's girlfriend came to dinner along with her children and it was a lot of fun to have small children around. I did enjoy colouring in and playing with their toys. Today my plan is to avoid the Boxing Day sales (because anyway I have already bought two pairs of shoes) and curl up with the dog and some sweets and a film. I love this time of year!

Nic and I spend Christmas separately as he goes to his parents' house and I go to mine. This arrangement works fine for us - and this year he is coming to Northern Ireland to join us for New Year's Eve - so every year that we have been together we have had our own little pre-Christmas Christmas. This consists of us watching Christmas specials of our favourite TV shows and Christmas films, cooking Christmas dinner together and exchanging our gifts. It's always very festive and fun.

This year we held our Christmas on Sunday 15th as I was heading home on the 17th. I had bought most of Nic's presents already but on the Saturday we headed out into town to do some last minute shopping and to go out for a coffee. I had a very specific, very small gift in mind for Nic, but seemed to spend most of the afternoon trying to find it! Thankfully it was a lovely dry, mild day so wandering around was most pleasant.

 

Calamity Jane dress and Faith ruffle shoes

My mum and dad bought me these shoes for my birthday a few years ago but I haven't worn them for a while because for ages the top of the t-bar rubbed. But, as is sometimes the mysterious way of shoes, they have now stopped rubbing. GREAT STORY BRO. I wore this with a purple cardigan, too.

Purple, very wrinkly cardigan from Warehouse

Post-Christmas shopping, Nic went out with some friends and I stayed in and spend hours reading about conspiracy theories on the internet, because I am really cool like that. I was glad when Nic got home though because I had reached the stage where I was freaking myself out. I still couldn't seem to stop myself, even though I didn't believe any of them (except maybe the Beyonce not really pregnant one) I am much, much too impressionable.

I managed to get my festive feelings back when we got up on Sunday morning and opened our gifts. Nic loved the small thing that I spent ages trying to find (sword-shaped cocktail sticks, but that wasn't his whole gift) and it was a lot of fun to listen to the Charlie Brown Christmas record, open gifts and eat our selection boxes. The only thing that could have added to it was a bottle of something alcholic and fizzy - and I will get on that for next faux-Christmas! Nic had bought all of my gifts from my favourite shop in Leamington, Magpie Mexicana, which was very exciting. I got dressed and we went out for a walk in the afternoon.

Colette Patterns Chantilly dress, Sourpuss Swallow Cardigan and Irregular Choice No Place Like Home shoes

This lovely cardigan was one of Nic's gifts, and very fitting it was too as it is very rare that I'm not in a cardigan! It's lovely - and it fits really well in the sleeves and waist but of course, is a bit small to button up totally. So this next photo is for the purpose of showing you all the swallows, I don't think that the buttons-straining look is a good one!

Swallows!

We finished our Christmas day by going to the pub with some friends, which was perfect. Sadly I couldn't get too festive as I had to go to work the next day - even though it was my last day before the holidays it was a busy one. Still, that didn't dampen my enthusiam for a lovely day.

Now, my sister is cooking a lovely late lunch so I'm off to feast on that, but I'm sure I'll be back later in the week. Happy Christmas, everyone!