What Sophie Said

December is such an exciting month, full of merriment and friends and family, and of course it features Christmas. Here are my ten favourite things about the final month of the year: Family time. My family are great, simple as. Advent calendar chocolate for breakfast. Why does chocolate taste ten times better when it’s been hidden behind a cardboard and foil window? Christmas songs. I know they’re cheesy, but I love them. Christmas carols. I love singing them at the top of my voice in Christmas services. Giving presents. There’s nothing nicer than being able to treat the people you care about Christmas decorations. Everything is so bright and sparkly! The gatherings. The chance to get dressed up and have a good old catch-up with friends and family. Christmas jumpers. They’re so warm and so cheesy: perfect. The mood. People seem so excited, and happy to be heading off for a break from ‘normal life’. The traditions. There’s something so cosy and comforting about family Ch...

Hello, December. You’ve raced towards us, this year. I always look forward to December. I’m a summer girl through and through, but December holds a special place. It’s so Christmassy. Bright. Festive. Busy. Full of family. Full of friends. Full of excitement. I get an overwhelming mixture of emotions in December. I had a couple of strange ones. In one, I was home after my first term of university, where I wasn’t happy. That December/ January, my sister was really poorly. I didn’t like that year. In another, I felt nauseous. A lot. I was convinced I had some kind of bug, but couldn’t figure it out. Chewing gum (the minty taste) kept me going through social outings. That was third year of uni. A couple of months later, it became clear that had been the first signs of my anxiety taking hold. In another December, I was struggling, probably at one of the worst parts of my panicking. I had to leave the room during a family gathering. I ate next to nothing...

This is the first of three Christmassy blog posts: the build-up, the parties and the day itself.  I absolutely love Christmas, and it’s been such a busy festive period that it feels like the perfect way to get back into blogging ahead of the new year. I started to feel Christmassy this year on the day of a trip to The Ideal Home Show at Christmas with my mum.  The queue was enormous, but we were greeted at the door by a choir singing Christmas carols, santa and an elf in their sleigh, and it was snowing over the entrance. On arrival, we walked through a winter wonderland of Christmas trees guiding us in to the main exhibition hall. The stalls were divided into different sections, such as health and beauty, clothing, Christmas, home and garden.. and by far our favourite was food. We watched a few demos, and sampled plenty of foods and drinks - although we did decline a 10am bowl of curry! Having not really known what t...

The results are in for my first challenge month! I will aim to get these up on the last day of the month, before introducing a new challenge on the 1 st , but Christmas and New Year has thrown every schedule out of the window! My December challenge was to spend no money on any make-up or toiletries. I admitted this was a little easier because of my beauty advent calendars, but when weighed up with the temptations of amazing sales it was still tough. I did it, though! I’ve begun working my way through products I had forgotten about, and using up a lot of sachets and samples, which is clearing up space in my room. I definitely want to continue working through all the things I already have, and try and use up as many as I can before buying loads more. Judging on the way I then acted yesterday, when faced with the sales, I have begun to think a bit more about what I want and need. December gave me the chance to look through and rediscover what I already own, so I have a...

There’s something very different about the build-up to Christmas once you are no longer in full-time education.  Having graduated in June, this is my first Christmas with a full-time job, and my first Christmas that doesn’t fall in the middle of a nice long 3-week holiday. For a start, the month of December is racing by! Without the routine of timetabled lessons, followed by a formal end to the term and some free time to relax and finish Christmas shopping, the big day seems to be catapulting nearer. The windows on my advent calendars (I have 3 – is that acceptable?) are flying open and the countdown is well and truly on. December is a month full of events, both recurring annual ones and one-off catch-ups, and all of those are now being fitted in after days at work, or fitted into the couple of bank holidays we all have off. It’s been a busy couple of weeks so far… First came ChristmasFest, in the village where I live. An annual event, all of the shops s...