Good morning dear reader and Merry Christmas, I hope that you had the most splendid of days and that your boxing day hangover isn't too bad this morning, if it is then I suggest a quick Bloody Mary might be just the ticket, I'd have one myself but I need the coffee first!

Yesterday exceeded all of my expectations, we had a truly brilliant Christmas day, a little different to the last 15 years but really, I think having friends over for Christmas is such a brilliant idea that I want to do it every year, I also want to have an open house policy at Christmas because I truly believe that no one should be alone at Christmas.

I didn't take a lot of photos yesterday because to be quite frank if I wasn't cooking or eating I was generally kicking back and having fun.

Obviously there are just 1 or 2 photos of Holly, she's so blooming funny and cute, she was like an overexcited toddler yesterday and definitely overtired by the end of the day, so much so that she didn't even wake me up until 8am and even then it was by jumping on the bed for a huge cuddle!

I think all of the above photos were taken on Christmas eve just in case you're wondering why Looby is dressed and then in pyjamas and then dressed again.

Christmas day started off at a really respectable time, in fact it was around 9am when the kids finally got up, Holly and I had a lovely hour on our own having cuddles from about 8ish, it was certainly a very gentle start to Christmas day.  First present Looby got was a unicorn, she requested a unicorn specifically but because I couldn't fit a real one in our house I thought a knitted one might work just as well.

Abigail doing her self tickling face....no I don't know either!

Holly got a lovely Christmas outfit to wear and it was greatly admired when we went for a lovely Christmas morning dog walk down to the park!

Despite what you would think Li and I only drank 2 bottles of Prosecco yesterday, it seems we're quite good at fun family portraits and the ones with me in them were taken by top photographer Looby, I wonder if I could send her to future portrait sessions.

I have to say that I really excelled myself with Christmas lunch yesterday, a huge rack of pork was a massive success, Iain and Looby both has poussin and I don't think anyone left anything, it was simply yumptious!

Holly loves Li's daughter, new best friend!

and in the midst of all of the Christmas chaos Looby set up her foot spa and read a book whilst we all got vibration related illnesses, how noisy are foot spas?

We played festive bingo afterwards for chocolate coins and then we settled down for Dr Who which was pretty good, I'm not sure it was my favourite Christmas Dr Who but to be honest I need to watch it again when I can properly concentrate on it.  After that everyone watched Miranda (recorded for later for me) while I made a huge Christmas buffet supper full of yummy treats though we all mainly just picked at stuff!

Today is all about taking it easy, the girls are going to their dads for Christmas number 2, Li is going to her mums for Christmas number 2 and Holly and I shall be very much in relaxation mode, i'd stay in my pyjamas if it wasn't for the fact that I've promised her a very long dog walk.

Whatever you get up to today, have a fabulous Boxing day and I'll be back in a few days with more festive tales.

5 Christmas things for a very festive Thursday

Good festive morning to you dear reader, I wrote a blog this morning which I have to admit was a bit of a mis mash and I want to sit back and consider it before I post it, I also need a little more bravery, it's still hard to talk about some stuff even though it probably does need to be said so I'll leave it in drafts and work on it!  So lets talk about my favourite subject of Christmas instead.

1. The top selling Christmas gift of 2014 is of course the Frozen Snow Glow Elsa doll it's the toy every small person wants and it's not going to be cheap to get one at this point, they are simply sold out everywhere, last week though I randomly clicked on that very same link when trying to help a lady find one for her niece and we actually managed to get one for the RRP, at the moment there are none for less than £60ish but occasionally someone will get a new batch, stick them on and they'll go for the normal £35ish, keep checking would be my top tip, don't go and buy one from Ebay for £800 though!
2. The 2014 Christmas TV Schedule has been announced, what I haven't managed to google is if there are any new wonderful food specials, there always are of course and I'm ever hopeful for Jamie Oliver, Nigella, James Martin and Rick Stein
3. It's exactly 3 weeks until Christmas and I am just about ready to go, I've been gradually Christmas shopping since the beginning of October and adding just 1 or 2 things a week to my shopping has really paid off, it's not going to be the biggest pile of presents ever underneath our Christmas tree but as Looby reminded me, it's not about the presents, it's about the people, I do hope that Abigail and Iain are ok with that too!
4. Being that I won't get any perfume for Christmas this year, I've been thinking about treating myself to my favourite Juicy Couture Viva la Juicy  I still have some Chanel number 19 left, don't know what I'll do when that runs out, that's definitely one I can't afford to buy myself!
5. Christmas is the time for new books so I'm going to buy myself some new ones to read during my 2 week Christmas break, on my list are Russell Brands "Revolution", "We are all completely beside ourselves" by Karen Joy Fowler and Stephen Frys "More Fool Me"

and so that's the things I'm thinking about on this thoroughly festive Thursday, on a work note I have the following availability to fill before the end of the year - 

Tuesday 9/12 - 10-1.30 anywhere 

Friday 13/12 - 10-1.30 anywhere
Monday 15/12 - 11am - Jesmond Dene
Wednesday 17/12 - 10-1.30 anywhere
Thursday 18/12 - 10 - 1.30 anywhere
Saturday 20/12 - 12.30, 1 and 1.30 - Jesmond Dene

30 minute sessions at Jesmond Dene, Saltwell Park and Tynemouth Longsands are £25, other locations/ at home/ larger family portraits start from £40

All photo shoots come with a web gallery for 30 days, 15% off for the first week your gallery is live and a complimentary print.

Please all manifest with me so I can fill those final sessions, my last planned photo shoots of the year will be on Saturday 20th of December and then I plan to resume photo shoots from Saturday January 3rd however, if you have family around this Christmas who you only see once a year and you want to celebrate that with a photo shoot do get in touch and I'll see what I can do, all photo shoots during this time will be a minimum of £40 depending on location.

and so go forth dear reader, drink egg nog (but not too much) sparkle like a Christmas fairy and I'll be back tomorrow with, well who knows, some days I find blogging easier than other days.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

The festive period has well and truly landed at Charlton towers, yesterday we festooned the house with as many Christmas lights as we could find and Looby, the little gem that she is did the entire tree apart from fluffing up the branches and putting the lights on, she's a little Christmas wonder that one, she even said as we were having our 10 minute bedtime chat that she knows that Christmas isn't about presents, it's about spending time together as a family, I told her she should never change and she told me her teacher had said that to her last week too!

Apologies for the slightly dodgy quality of the Instagrams but it was pretty dark by the time I was able to photograph it and still no photographs of downstairs, I might do that after the cleaner has been as it's abysmal!

There was a certain sadness yesterday as putting the Christmas decorations up was always such a family occasion, I would do all of the decorating, the kids would put the decorations on the tree and Paul would sit in the corner getting drunk on egg nog, it's not that I miss that part so much but I've always so strongly firmed in being a family that it's sad the way that things ended up.  Poor Abigail is really poorly and stuck at her dads, too ill to come home apparently so Abigail if you are reading this, get well soon and come home to see that Christmas has arrived!

Tonight I am going to a Christmas party, my first foray into the world and being social, I've already tried to get out of it several times but I am taking Stacey to thank her for working so hard for me this year and also because there was less chance that I would actually chicken out of going.  I did say to all of the children that I could stay home if they needed me more but Looby said this morning that she wanted me to go out.  This is the first of 3 festive events I have invitations to but this one is the only evening event out in the big wide world, I'm slightly terrified but at least it's at The Stand in Newcastle so 1, it's in the dark and 2, it's comedy so I don't actually have to talk to people.  I don't actually have anything to wear at this point and there's a bottle of hair dye on top of the fridge which stands between grey haired old lady me and slightly younger red headed me.  I'm running to the retail park once lovely Daria stops cleaning around me and I've seen the black dress I'm going to buy so it's just a quick run into the M&S outlet store and a grab at the nearest rail!

Back tomorrow, if I survive...

Living a life of sparkle

It's been such a long time since I could say that I feel like myself again but I think I am finally getting there, yesterday I caught up to date with work for the first time in a year, mainly thanks to going into my office for a Colleagues On Tap event, surrounded by other business owners with a healthy dose of Jayne Grahams amazing millionaires chocolate shortbread I completed everything that had fallen by the wayside over the last couple of months.  I can't recommend Colleagues on Tap highly enough if you need to just go somewhere and get stuff done, Jayne is also one of the most experienced and knowledgeable business consultants I know (as well as being a whizz in the cake making department).

I think I really started to feel myself again on Sunday, I'd actually been thinking for a few days that living a life of sparkle is the only way forward and believe me when I say that I might not quite be full on sparkle yet but I am definitely getting there and that feels good!

I've ramped up my marketing efforts and I'm pretty sure that I can fill all of my work days from now until Christmas so that I can give the kids an amazing Christmas both by making sure Santa brings some lovely gifts but also by making sure that I am financially stable enough to be able to take the whole of the Christmas holidays off at home with them doing wonderfully festive activities every single day!

So far on the menu for Looby at least is a trip to see Peter  Pan at the Whitley Bay Playhouse, and Get Santa at the Northern Stage and we'll mix that in with lovely long crisp frosty walks and cosy hot chocolates and christmas movies under fluffy blankets, I'd say in front of the fire but the reality is that my fire is electric and it's only ever been used once when the central heating broke, it's definitely not economical and it has a strange smell so no one is going to be cosying around that!

If you are doing your Christmas shopping currently I hear the number 1 best selling Christmas present of 2014 is the Frozen Elsa doll now Looby hasn't mentioned that she wants one but she does still have a bit of a penchant for dolls, I did note that you can get Frozen Top Trumps and they seem like a good stocking filler for under a fiver, they're my top bargain tips for this week, buy them early before they sell out!

So my wish for you all today is to sparkle like a festive thing, I'm not encouraging you to put up your Christmas decorations just yet although I was speaking to someone yesterday who had put their Christmas tree up and when I exclaimed it was quite early they replied telling me that they're quite late with it this year, do people really put their Christmas trees up before the very end of November/beginning of December, when is the correct time to adorn and festoon your halls with holly and such festive decoration, do leave a comment and let me know