A very happy festive season to you all! I do hope you’ve had a great Christmas with lots of relaxing and food and whatnot!
We’ve been enjoying a pretty chilled week on holiday, seeing family, eating lots and slobbing around a fair bit too. It’s been a lovely respite after several weeks of busyness, which I thought I’d quickly catch up on now….
The run up to Christmas is always busy for me, like for lots of people. This year I was better prepared for it though, and managed to stay on top of my orders really well, leaving enough time to enjoy the season too!
As well as all my online sales, I hosted a little stall at a Christmas craft fair at the Otley Courthouse…..it was a great excuse to break out my Christmas jumper early!
At the end of November, Adam drove us up to visit friends in Edinburgh, where we spent a really fun weekend. It was my first ever trip to Scotland (can you believe it?!) so we did all the touristy sightseeing things!
Everywhere was getting super Christmassy, with a couple of big Christmas markets in town…it was a wonderful way to start feeling all festive!
The following weekend we met up with some friends for a lovely long dog walk at Bolton Abbey. There was even a little Christmas market there, and it was great to catch up with people and enjoy the gorgeous surroundings too.
We also took a Christmassy trip to Harrogate, where a friend was hosting a stall at the big Country Living Christmas Fair. We also stopped in at the Christmas market in the Montpelier Quarter, although it was rather too busy for us to enjoy properly!
December began, of course, with advent calendars! Adam’s Mum always buys us the Cadbury’s ones, and I love having the chocolate with my morning coffee! I made for Adam a treasure hunt advent, whereby he had to solve a riddle each day to find each day’s treat. And for the first time we treated the hounds to a rather specical advent calendar each from Barney’s Biscuit Boxes, which were sold to raise funds for Pup Aid! They were filled with lots of yummy natural treats, which the boys just loved!
The Christmas Fair at Leeds Donkey Sanctuary was a great excuse to go and visit, so we went with Adam’s parents, Brother, Sister in Law, and our little niece. We got to meet some of the donkeys who Adam’s Mum adopts, and we adopted some as Christmas gifts and one for ourselves too! There was a donkey ride to see Father Christmas for the children, lots of donkeys to fuss over, and a wonderful cake stall to boot!
The scones from the fair were to die for, and it being the season of frivolity and all, we had some for breakfast the following morning!
We finally got around to hanging our huge map in the living room, which along with the Christmas tree and other decorations made the place look a whole lot brighter!
In exchange for help hanging the map, we cooked up a pork belly for friends, which was a good warm up to all the Christmas eating! We also took advantage of the holidays to do lots of baking and cooking, which I always enjoy when we get chance.
Otley holds a big Victorian Christmas Fayre every year, and so we went to see all that was going on. There were tombolas, crafty things to buy, school choirs on the stage, a Punch and Judy, and several beautiful fair organs which played wonderful Christmas music! We treated ourselves to a hog roast after Adam had tried his luck with most of the tombolas!
We did a little more exploring locally, looking for places that we might like to call home, and also took our first proper trip into Leeds since we moved! We met up with some local friends and had a wonderful supper at Little Tokyo, then were lucky enough to get the last four tickets to see The Wood Beneath The World….set underneath Leeds Town Hall, the installation-come-promenade experience was incredibly chilling, but also very exciting and inspiring.
Then on Christmas Eve we bought a house! We’d seen it the weekend prior, and viewed it a second time before making an offer….and some time in the new year we’ll be moving into our very own first home! We are extremely excited to own our own place and have lots of plans for when we get there!
Christmas morning saw a lovely dog walk, gift unwrapping and a yummy breakfast of duck eggs. Then we went over to Adam’s parents’ place for a big Christmas lunch, with more gifts and festivities.
Then in the evening we slobbed out at home….Adam got me lots of Wes Anderson films for Christmas and we started to make our way through those whilst I enjoyed coffee and cognac (one of my favourites!).
We headed back to Adam’s parents for a big leftover lunch on boxing day, and today I made us all a cottage pie lunch. In between it’s been more lounging about, eating chocolates and running a few errands. We’ve started watching the extended version of the Lord of the Rings films, which will keep us busy, and we have more plans for the week ahead to look forward to.
I hope you’ve had a great Christmas too!
Ems x
