Month: Dec 2023

Betwixtmas ~ 2023 in Review

Taking some time over my morning coffee to reflect on the year behind and the new one ahead. 2023 was overall a great year for us as we enjoyed so many new experiences and adventures as a family of four.

In February we celebrated our oldest daughter’s third birthday, she has always been such a determined and independent little girl and over the last year she’s reached new levels, learning to ride a bike, playing football and learning Spanish at preschool. She’s a sociable child and we’ve loved meeting some of her little friends for playdates too. Her imagination has exploded this year and we’ve enjoyed lots of make believe games of doctors, vets, hair dressers and librarians with various playsets and improvised props.

Our first family holiday

In July, we took our first family holiday together spending a few nights in a caravan on the East Coast and spending every day at the beach with the kids, which we all loved. I also celebrated a milestone birthday, and it has provoked some reflection on what’s important to me now and what I’d like to do in the next decade of my life.

Over the summer we enjoyed lots of trips to the beach, local parks and time in our own garden too, letting the kids eat fresh berries they picked, and our oldest grew carrots from seed. We’ve made some big changes to the front and back gardens this year, adding a pond to the front garden and replacing the unruly privet hedge with a fence in the back.

Homegrown fruit and veg

In October, we finally returned to the Enchanted Forest for the first time since 2019, which was a first for both our girls. We also celebrated eight year anniversary for adopting Mara, I’m not sure I ever imagined we’d be so lucky when we adopted her without knowing her age, but I’m so grateful for her companionship.

In November, our youngest daughter turned one and started walking. She is quite petite for her age but smiley, quietly determined, curious and mischievous; she loves musical toys, games of peekaboo and snuggling up to read her lift the flap, and touchy-feely books together.

Christmas at home

This last month has been an emotional one starting and ending with funerals for two very different women but both of whom were much loved and who lived well. Despite the grief, we’ve managed to enjoy trips to the Christmas Market with rides on the carousel, ferris wheel and waltzers, snowball fights on a snow day and a lovely few days with our extended families for Christmas itself. We are now enjoying a few quieter days at home just the four of us and Mara, of course, with a few playdates to tide us over until nursery and work resume, and I’m feeling incredibly grateful for my little family.

Wishing everyone the very happiest New Year. X

Winter Solstice Reflections

Taking some time on the Winter Solstice to reflect on the build up to Christmas so far. December has been a bittersweet month, our festive preparations and fun bookended by funerals at the beginning and end of the month, it’s a very pertinent reminder that the most important things cannot be bought and never to take our loved ones for granted.

I’ve shown remarkable restraint in not overbooking our calendar and dragging my family to every Santa’s grotto, light show and pantomime. Yet we have enjoyed trips to the Christmas markets with full family rides on the carousel, waltzers and ferris wheel. We also attended our oldest daughter’s first nativity and Christmas show at preschool, which was lovely, if a bit overwhelming for the young cast.

Decorating the tree was no mean feat with our one-year-old daughter stealing the baubles, our cat chasing the tinsel and our nearly four year old daughter “helping”, but we got there in the end. I added two new ornaments to our collection for the tree: a wooden Santa, that I found at the Christmas Emporium in Pitlochry back in October when we went to visit the Enchanted Forest, and a Nordic Gnome (or Gonk) because our youngest daughter is fascinated by them.

We had a couple of snow days in early December, waking up to the muffled silence of snow blanketing our corner of the world. I was every bit as excited as our kids as we wrapped up to tumble outside throwing snowballs at each other and making Angels on the ground. It was a wonderful reminder that sometimes the most fun can be both spontaneous and free.

The festive season can feel stressful and overwhelming as we rush around buying presents and trying to squeeze in all the magical experiences, forgetting that the true magic of Christmas is often the warmth and comfort of our homes contrasted with the cold and darkness outside, waking up to the world blanketed by snow and just enjoying time together with the people we love most.

Wishing everyone a very merry Christmas when it comes. X

November Reading Wrapup

My library requests arrived early so read mostly Christmas stories in November, which worked out well as it was a cold, frosty and dark month that definitely felt more wintry than autumnal.

The Christmas Bookshop by Jenny Colgan

I’ve been feeling oddly nostalgic for the years I spent working in a bookshop, though romance is a genre I’ve overlooked but this appealed to me because it reminded me of how my own husband and I met in a bookshop. The Christmas Bookshop defied all my expectations, it’s so much more then a romance, with a much greater focus on family relationships and personal agency than romance. When the department store Carmen has worked at since school closes down, she moves to Edinburgh with her over achieving, perfectionist older sister, Sofia, and starts working at a failing bookshop with the eccentric and reclusive owner. In many ways, this story feels like a love letter to Edinburgh with its idiosyncratic architecture and town planning, and I have to agree the Scottish capital is particularly enchanting around Christmas. I loved this story from start to end, and I can’t wait to read more by Jenny Colgan.

I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday by Milly Johnson

The Christmas Bookshop was always going to be a hard book to follow and this didn’t hit the mark for me. It follows six people who are snowed in at an abandoned inn in the middle of nowhere: there’s the couple who met at the wrong time in their lives and had a roller-coaster romance reuniting only to sign their divorce papers, the PA with a crush on her oblivious boss, and an aging gay couple celebrating one last Christmas together after one of them receives a terminal diagnosis. This is full of festive atmosphere but it’s a very slow burn romance and I was disappointed when the couple I was rooting for didn’t end up together and the heroine I really hoped would move on ended up with her love interest whose rapid realisation and personality change just didn’t ring true for me.

The Christmas Sisters by Sarah Morgan

This was more of a family drama than a romance, which was just as well as the romantic subplots all fell flat for me, but I was swept up in the McBride family’s Christmas reunion as all three sisters return home for the first time in years. There’s ambitious, successful and emotionally reserved Hannah, Beth who feels overwhelmed and lost in motherhood but feels guilty about wanting to return to work, and finally the most open and adventurous sister, Posy, who has never left home for fear of letting her parents down. This was an enjoyable read but quite cheesy and the personal and romantic dilemmas were all resolved a bit too easily.

The Deal of a Lifetime by Fredrik Backman

Having read and loved Fredrik Backman’s Beartown, I’ve been eager to read his other works but given the heavy topics he usually covers, I knew better than to expect his Christmas story to be cosy and heartwarming. The Deal of a Lifetime is a very short but haunting story about a man grappling with living and dying, his fear of death and his quest to build a legacy that will live on after him, until he has to choose whether to do something truly selfless even if no one else will ever know about it.

The Power of Showing Up by Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson

I ended the month by finishing a parenting book that I’ve been dipping in and out of for a few months. The Power of Showing Up takes a look at how to build a secure attachment with your children, explaining attachment theory and attachment disorders, before breaking down how to build a secure attachment at any age into four specific steps. I really enjoyed the informative and practical approach this book took to a topic that overlaps my personal and professional life.

Have a lovely week. X