A festive to-do list

Photo by freestocks.org on Unsplash

Yesterday my Mum and I visited the Country Living Christmas Fair in London where we spent a wonderful few hours browsing all the festive goodies, picking up some treats and enjoying planning the weeks to come (primarily food-related!) I treated myself to a Christmassy candle, some new decorations for our tree (I do this every year!) and some amazing cheddar and chutneys, which I'm already excited about digging into on Christmas day.

I love this time of year, it's my favourite. As Autumn gets colder and crisper, the leaves change colour and fall, and then the nights get darker but interspersed with the festive lights twinkling from windows and trees. This year will be our first Christmas in our own home so it feels extra special.

A few years ago I sat down and wrote a wishlist of things I wanted to do over the festive season. It was a really good chance to reflect on what's important to me and all the little things that I look forward to this time of year, so I've decided to do it again this year.

Here are a few things that I'd like to spending some time doing over the course of the weeks leading up to Christmas and the festive period itself:

• Write Christmas cards while listing to my favourite Christmas songs.
• Crafting some more Christmas decorations - last year I made reams of paper chains and it was so fun to do and they looked wonderful!
• Go out to look at some Christmas lights while sipping on something hot and preferably mulled!
• Visit a Christmas tree farm and choose our tree.
• Buy a tub of Christmas chocolates (we're a Cadbury Roses household!) to enjoy over the Christmas period.
• Decorate the tree by candlelight - bring on all of the hygge cosiness. 
• Bake some festive treats.
• Donate to our local Foodbank and Toybank.
• Enjoy my favourite Christmas films - Gremlins, White Christmas, Home Alone, Muppet Christmas Carol, The Holiday, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Scrooged...it's a long list and that doesn't even include the cheesy holiday specials on Netflix, which I looooved last year.
• Attend a carol service.
• Partake in some favourite festive foods - mince pies, cheeses accompanied by chutney and picked onions (I could eat them on their own really!), sprouts, bread sauce and allll of the chocolate. 
• Go to the ballet - this one's already booked, we're going to watch the Nutcracker!
• Wrap presents by the tree.
• Jólabókaflóð - this is the Icelandic tradition of exchanging books on Christmas Eve before spending some time together reading. Isn't that a lovely idea? Apparently people tend to take their books to bed with some chocolate, which sounds extra cosy. We'll probably be very busy on Christmas Eve as we're hosting this year (eep!) but I'm hoping that we can make the time to do this.

Do you enjoy this time of year? What would be on your festive wishlist?