Happy Monday all! I’m feeling the fizz of excitement as December is here at last!! It feels like it’s taken forever to get here. I do so love this time of year and, for me, it’s been building since September (sad but true!). As you can imagine, my excitement level starts to go through the roof come December! Life starts to get pretty hectic about now and even more so as I have stupidly decided to do Vlogmas! I really have no idea why I thought it would be a good idea, but now I’ve started I’m going to do my best to see it through. I’m pretty sure we won’t be able to post a video every day as there will be very little content on work and school days, but I will see how it goes and try my best to fulfil my goal of 24 videos in 24 days (arrggh!).
We have started booking up some festive activities to do as a family over the next few weeks and I’m looking forward to the children’s activities coming to an end so we can have more family time in the evenings and at weekends. I booked a pretty big trip up to London for Christmas Eve to see the Christmasaurus! I read the book to Phoebe last year and was so excited when I saw the musical version was coming to the London stage. The idea of travelling up on Christmas Eve and seeing all the Christmas lights was just magical. On Monday last week I got an email from the Apollo telling me my tickets for the show on the 27th were ready to be downloaded. 27th? 27th?? Surely there must be some mistake? Erm…no! The only mistake was apparently the one where I booked tickets for that famous Christmas Eve date, the 27th December! Doh! So our trip will be delayed slightly but will be no less exciting or magical and will actually fill that limbo between Christmas and New Year nicely.
We’ve been crazily stocking up on all the gifts over the last few weeks and checking and double checking what the children want for Christmas to make sure we get it right. In all this excitement I thought it wise to remind Archie and Phoebe how lucky they are and that actually it’s important to realise that not everyone is quite so lucky and some people can’t have what they want at Christmas and too many get nothing at all. When Phoebe and I were collecting our trolley for our weekly shop in Tesco yesterday we passed a big basket of toys and gifts and Phoebe was pointing out some of the lovely things inside. The basket was actually a collection point for gifts for less fortunate families in Northamptonshire that otherwise may not receive any presents at Christmas. I explained the sentiment to Phoebe and she thought it would be a great idea if we went and found a nice gift to add to the basket.
Phoebe chose a toy monkey which she would definitely have liked to receive herself and, after purchasing it, she gave it a big kiss and a cuddle before lovingly placing it in the basket. I thought it was such a simple way for her to give something back. Even though it was only a small gesture it helped her understand that we are so lucky to be able to have a wonderful family Christmas with lots of gifts and lovely things to eat and that there are so many families out there that will never know what that’s like. We hope that little monkey will make another child smile as much as it did Phoebe and that it might make their Christmas day a little more enjoyable.
If you want to help by giving something back then google the ways you can help in your local area, pop down to your local homeless shelter or check out the reverse advent calendar.
Have a great week and we’ll be back here next week for the last Monday Motivation of 2017! Number 52! I’m pretty proud of myself that I’ve managed to keep this up!
Until then…
Nicx
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