It's Christmas at the Charlton's 2020 and Abigail commented yesterday that I hadn't blogged a lot this year and I should be blogging now because other people might want to read about what you do when you are at my life stage, i.e. with an empty nest! Well, the truth is that I've blogged less this year because I've just done less exciting things than ever before.  There's just not been a lot to write about and having just survived my first year in E-commerce at Philomena's Boutique I'm actually pretty tired right now!  I did realise, however that I hadn't shared this year's festive house and I like to write about the year's festive decoration as much as a record for me than anyone else!

Not going to lie, this year I went big as an antidote to 2020, I put up my decorations on the 2nd November with the help of lovely Looby and I've been living the twinkly life ever since.  it takes approximately 50 batteries to refresh all of the various sets of fairy lights and twinkly decorations, thank goodness for large multipacks you can get these years!

I can't remember a year when my home has been more twinkly, cosy or welcoming, renovating my home throughout 2021 remains to be one of the best things I've done because my home is me! I'm pretty sure everyone would guess correctly on "Through the Keyhole".

The latest room I've worked on is my spare room and it's such a lovely cosy cocoon, I've really been enjoying having Abigail stay since she came home from Uni for Christmas, it's actually not quite finished as I still have some art to go on the wall and actually I think this room is going to end up being my bedroom, I just need to swap the beds over and then my bedroom will become the office and the office will be a spare room, yes, still lots of changes to make in 2022 but I am really looking forward to doing more renovation.  I lost my zest for it during the first lockdown but I'm raring to go again during the winter when I doubt we'll be able to do much else really!

This year I'm counting myself to be very lucky as I'll be spending Christmas Day with both Abigail and Looby and it's the first time in a few years, it's really the only Christmas gift I want or need so even if I have to spend a lot of the next few weeks alone, this last week that I've had with Abigail and Christmas Day, well it's enough really in this very weird year of 2020.

Christmas at the Charltons 2018

After our festive day out in London, Looby and I decided we couldn't wait any longer to deck our halls and bring Christmas to the Charlton house.  And then Abigail said she had an inset day so the festooning began.

Now I have to admit that things in our house had already began to get a little jolly, I'd been preparing gift guides since September after all and then this little chap and his babies arrived!

If you're a fan of Fantastic Beasts you may remember that the Niffler is a cute mole like character with a penchant for all things Gold and shiny, much fun has ensued since his arrival courtesy of Kap Toys, he arrived in glorious form with his Niffler babies which are brand new and available from independent toy stores and I think these are going to make the most wonderful presents this Christmas, just make sure you don't sit them too near your sparkly things.

Being one of the hosts of the #Nifflers Twitter party I can say was the most fun I'd had in ages, Nifflers really are the cutest and even more so in real life, the big one is so squishy and soft and the little ones are just the right size to fit in this years Christmas stockings, I'm actually surprised Holly Bobbins hasn't helped herself to one yet!!

Anyway, I digress, back to decking the halls and merrily festooning.  In total it's taken nearly a week to get everything the way we want it and I still have nothing outdoors, my garden is a mess and the weather has been too evil to do anything about it.  Indoors though we are a sparkly haven of warmth and twinkle.

and so to me, everything is now at one with the world, I've started my Christmas shopping and actually I'm doing pretty well with it, my house is sparkly enough that I feel no need to venture into the outdoor world and thank goodness for that as I score at least a 7/10 for being a reclusive hermit currently.  Next week is my annual Christmas party and I'm attempting to turn my entire kitchen table into a giant grazing platter which will go with my Christmas punch which combines Red Shloer with Prosecco, grapes and cranberries guaranteed to make any party a festively fabulous one!

The next few weeks are sure to pass in a blur, this time of year is so busy after all, I've pretty much turned down all invitations apart from my own party because I feel it's safer to let people come to me.  I shall however be taking a couple of weeks off at Christmas, I didn't book myself any weekends off last year so I reckon I'm overdue a long break where I can catch up on some books I've stockpiled, there can be no going back now though, Christmas 2018, we are coming to get you!

Christmas 2017 - The day, I took an extra day off

Today I took some extra time off, I'm trying so hard to spend as much time with Looby during the week, I've mentioned 347 billion times that I home educate during the week but it's November and people are panicking about Christmas already, it's always the same, I wish I could edit every single image I take at a weekend by a Monday and sometimes I do, I never take longer than 7 days for portraits and 4 weeks for weddings. I wish that I could clone myself and have more availability, I wish that I had the ability to magically appear on everyone's desk to tell them "It's December, your voucher you bought 12 months ago which expires soon, it's 12 months later"  My health and parenting Looby is paramount, they're the most important things and today I just needed time to be, time to put down my phone, put my iMac to sleep and festively decorate our house, research shows that people who put up their Christmas trees earlier are happier and maybe that should be the lesson of the day, put up your Christmas trees, admire the twinkly lights, open up a bottle of Baileys or in my case, break into the Amaretti biscuits and Turrone early whilst everyone is in bed.

I've always loved Christmas, it's the season of Joy and overwhelmingly people are nicer to each other, at least in the Christmas period when everyone stops and doesn't have to think about life, work or their problems for a couple of weeks.  There's something about sitting with tree lights festively twinkling which makes the world seem better, our house was made for Christmas, I love cosy and I hate my lounge in summer because with one wall being a giant window, it gets to be like a greenhouse, also cosy doesn't work so much in summer so I wait all year for autumn and winter when my house comes into its own and that's never more so than during the festive season, for me, Christmas really is a season.

As you might have worked out thus far, I don't do Christmas decor by halves, it's my time to shine, it's my time to light up the world with my interior decorating skills, each paper snowflake, each bauble must be in exactly the right place, I'm a little anal about it all which is weird because for most of the year I seem to live in disorganised chaos, maybe we should just keep our trees up all year around?

If you came here for photographs then you are in luck, they're all pretty low light and taken with my iPhone 8Plus which is actually astonishing, of course, yes it's about the person using it but they really have got better and better.  Now if you'd like to see my home in previous years there's Christmas 2016 and Christmas 2015 to start, I'm pretty sure you'll find 10 years or more if you just search it.  I think though, (after just scanning back) I've really nailed it this year, everything is a little more sparkly and we even have outdoor lights courtesy of a very cool laser thing which cost all of £20 from Home Bargains.

My downstairs tree from the last couple of years has now made it into the garden and I've replaced it with a rather snazzy snowy half Christmas tree from Argos which cost £49.99 and then a few pounds for the lights, we didn't put any decorations on it as it looks so real and beautiful and our kitchen always has a snowy Narnia theme.

There's something special this year about my lounge, it's the same Christmas tree as last year and the year before but I paid around £150 for it, again, it's got a really high needle count so looks like a real tree, something which I almost demand in a Christmas tree.  I found an amazing set of Christmas tree lights in Fenwick and it's almost like a curtain, it's joined at the top, you put it over the tree and you get 680 lights all perfectly falling over the tree, amazing, no random wires with up to 6 sets, just 1 set which will come off as easily as this went on, I can't recommend them enough.

The next thing is to make sure my bedroom has some festive touches, Looby has had a forest of trees in her bedroom for a couple of weeks, I've ordered a festive duvet set featuring a beagle, I realise it's a bit cheesier than usual but hey, it's Christmas, I also said to Looby we need to sort out our hallway and hopefully everything will be fabulous and as near to perfect as we can get just in time for our Christmas party which is a week on Friday.

I hope you all enjoy festively decorating your houses, do you do the whole house, and more importantly, how many Christmas trees?  If I could find space, I'd have even more!

Christmas decorating with The Flower Studio

When I stepped off the plane on Sunday night and stepped through my kitchen door there was a large parcel waiting for me teasing with expectation, inside a beautiful red box containing a gorgeous table centre from The Flower Studio, it was exactly what I needed to make sure I didn't have post travel blue and by Monday morning I had thrown myself into Christmas decorating with aplomb.

I adore Christmas and I love to have my house looking as festive as possible but there never seems to be just the right decoration in the middle of the table, but the hot chilli festive candle table centre is just perfect, it's quirky (I never would have thought of chillies at Christmas) and different and I had the idea to add some sparkly beady Christmas lights underneath for a little extra sparkle, you know me by now, you can never have enough sparkle.  It's just perfect and looks lovely on my festive table, my kitchen tends to be the coolest place in my house due to no central heating in there so I have no doubt that this is going to last through the festive season.

When you buy it it comes without candles but that's perfect as you can add your own to compliment your festive colour scheme, I think it would look perfect with red candles as it would bring out the colour in the chillies.  I also love the smell of the fresh pine, I always feel a little wistful that I can't have a real tree because of too many animals but this is perfect and it definitely has that fragrance that signifies that the Christmas season is most definitely upon us.

All around my house Christmas has started to appear, we replaced our silver pop up tree in the kitchen with a beautiful illuminated twig tree complete with winter berries, I just need to find a few birds to sit on the branches and it will be complete.

Our upstairs tree has also been replaced this year, I adore it, it's the closest to a real tree I think you can get and it's filled with decorations I've bought over the years, some have travelled from afar whilst some were picked up from local shops, I even picked up a bauble in Palma de Mallorca on Saturday

I love Christmas, in fact I think I'm probably the queen of Christmas though this year I've actually denied the coming of the festive season until I got home from my european trip so now I'm kind of on catch up and it's good I suppose as I don't feel that I've peaked too early, I am though now starting to have a bit of a panic because other than picking up presents whilst I was away I haven't really started my Christmas shopping and I've just looked at my work calendar for the next few weeks, lets just say I am super thankful for Amazon and their special deals every 10 minutes I picked up lots of bargains yesterday and now all I need to do is wait for them to arrive and then find a helpful elf to wrap them up.

Christmas this year of course is open house at my house, if you don't have anyone to be with this Christmas Day or Boxing Day, rather than being on your own or just alone at home with your kids if you are a single parent you can come to our house and feast on festive goodies, just send me an email and as long as you're not a serial killer then you are absolutely welcome to come and join what I hope will be a houseful of jolly old elves and animals, friends new and old, we'll celebrate together, bring a bottle or a festive dish if you can but if you can't don't worry, I will make sure there's something for everyone.  Christmas shouldn't be lonely but for some it sadly is and whilst I'm only one woman and can't save the world I do feel this time more than any other is the time for being with people so please don't let pride stand it the way, get in the car and I'll be waiting with open arms with a glass of non alcoholic mulled wine (or alcoholic if you're not driving) and together we'll all have the best Christmas ever.