The Christmas Build-Up

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 to expect, we definitely left the event in a festive mood, and mum was loaded up with plenty of Christmas presents.

Next, it was time for Poynton Christmasfest. In the first week of December each year, Park Lane in Poynton is closed to welcome Poyntoners for a festive evening. 

This year I went with my friend Jenny and two of her old schoolfriends, and we boogied down the road to festive songs, and generally soaked up the Christmas atmosphere.

There was also a pretty impressive fireworks display...

After which we bumped into my lovely parents for a while...

Santa was, of course, present, and the bonus of walking through the village to work the next day was seeing the finished ice sculpture.

With freeing fingers, and feeling like our feet were no longer attached to our bodies, we retreated home, full of the spirit of Christmas - and, in my mum's case, a fair few mulled wines.

As Christmas drew nearer, it was time for our work Christmas lunch, and the venue was Sutton Hall. It was my final day working with Jenny, as in January I will be starting a new job, so it was a mixture of Christmassy-ness and goodbyes.

Foodwise, we shared breads and antipasti, and followed it with a 'traditional turkey dinner with all the trimmings'.

The service was unfortunately quite slow and stilted on the day, but we do love Sutton Hall and haven't had that problem before...

Then, seeing as it was our last day working together, here's some photos with Jenny:

Meeting this lady has honestly been one of my favourite parts of the last year and a half in my old job. My parents love her too (she works for my mum) and I can say hand on heart she is one of the most funny, genuine and lovely people I have met in a very, very long time. If you want a nosy, she's got an amazing craft blog HERE, so go and give her some love.

So there were some of my highlights of early December, and my next post will be all about festive parties and gatherings...

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!