It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas...........

I'll start off by apologising, it's an extra long post today, so you may want to make yourself a hot drink and settle down, while you listen to me waffling on about Christmas.
It's one of my favourite times of the year, I just love everything about it from decorating the tree, to shopping, watching Christmas films, wrapping the gifts and of course spending time with my family.
I have all my family around Christmas Day, 15 of us all together, it's hectic but fun, my Dad dresses up as Santa and delivers all our presents, the kids love it and even though my girls are grown up they still get very excited. I hope they look back at their Christmases in years to come and remember all the good times and traditions we had.

Our pink themed Christmas tree went up, the last weekend in November, it's not very traditional but I love it, especially the fluffy feather boas. We did try just putting just the silver decorations up this year but we sat there looking at it and wasn't happy so on went the pink!!!!

My first Christmas outing was to a local village to watch the Christmas lights been switched on. Santa stopped by and all the quaint  little shops were open, all looking very festive with their beautiful window displays.

My Christmas cards have been made, I just need to write them now, I've gone with three quick designs, I love shabby chic cards but they are very time consuming so for Christmas I go for a more clean and simple look. The Merry Christmas wreath card is very traditional, while the snowflake card is more contemporary with the colours of aqua and red and then the Holly card is middle of the road using traditional gold and glitter but with kraft card.

Our next little trip was to Birmingham, where we got my Christmas present and then visited the Frankfurt German Market. This has been part of our Christmas tradition for a few years, now, it really gets me in the holiday spirit.

We had a wonder around, looking at the different stalls, I always end up buying a new tree decoration. I loved watching the ice skaters, this year, the rink hasn't been here for a few years, I just wish I was brave enough to have a go.

We had to stop for a short break and get some fried potatoes, mushrooms with garlic sauce and a mug of hot Gluh Wein, mmmmmmm, delicious.

We also popped onto The Jointstock for a drink, it's such a beautiful building and it had the biggest tree that I'd ever seen indoors, it was at least 30 foot high and decorated so pretty!!!!!!!

I've had my first festive Costa coffee, I went for the Salted Caramel skinny latte, yummy!!!

On Saturday, Paige and I went to see The Nutcracker, performed by the Birmingham Royal Ballet. It's the first time we'd seen it and it was absolutely amazing!!!! This could be a new Christmas tradition for us. The costumes and the set were breathtaking, the ballerina's so graceful, it really was a treat to watch.

One last little thing, today I decided to buy a real tree for the conservatory, we haven't had one for a few years. I'm the only one who likes real Christmas trees, I love the smell and I love that they're not a perfect shape or stand straight, it's all part of the charm.So as you can see it really is beginning to look a lot like Christmas at the Hickman house. 

Thanks for stopping by and listening to me waffle on, you can probably tell we love Christmas in our house, it was a bit of a long post, so if you made it to the end, thank you,lol. I'd love to hear about your Christmas traditions.

xxxxDebxxxx