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Ready, steady… CHRISTMAS!

screen-shot-2016-11-29-at-21-57-04

Don’t think I don’t I see you, there.

I see you!

I see you all stand like greyhounds in the slips, straining upon the start. So now Rejoice! Because the game really is afoot and today after those long lustful days since Bonfire Night, you now have my permission to go completely WILD with yuletide insanity. Because it is now actually actual Christmastime. It is advent. It is December.

Up go the advent calendars and the wreaths, down goes the faux ivy garland, on goes the Christmas sweater, round and round go the fairy lights…

You can eat mince pies without thinking “hang on, it’s November, this is a bit fucked up”, earnestly discuss wrapping schemes with a fellow aesthetic maniac on WhatsApp, do all your shopping, adjust your 23rd December 11am Ocado order nine times in one day, write out elaborate menu plans in the manner of the Duchess of Downton Abbey and put Now That’s What I Call Christmas on repeat.

As previously discussed, without my husband here most of the time, (he is abroad, working), there is no-one to cast a disapproving eye over some of the madder purchases that flow through my front door. And I have gone really quite insane with my Christmas decorations this year. There is a new pot pourri wreath, two new sets of coloured fairy lights – I am really feeling coloured fairy lights this year – a light-up little wooden church, candy canes and whatever exciting shit I can lay my hands on at the Alexandra Palace Garden centre tomorrow morning.

Is it just me? Is it just me feeling like this Christmas the is year is going to be (has got to be) the best Christmas ever?

I am doubly excited about my pan-European, cross-faith “Christmakkuh” celebration I am having at my house in a few weeks’ time. Our usual massive Christmas party is cancelled this year because a) Sam doesn’t like it and b) Giles is away so much it’s a bit tricky.

So instead my friend Simon who is Jewish is bringing dreidels and chocolate money for the kids and also my friend Max who is Catholic is coming with his wife and their new baby. Also Dr Chris off Operation Ouch and his wife – faiths unspecified.  Dr Xand is joining us from New York over Skype. We are going to have doughnut eating competitions and play with the dreidels to the sound of Now That’s What I Call Christmas, while Kitty and Sam sulk with their iPads upstairs because they get freaked out when people off the telly arrive at our house (get used to it, kids).

It’s going to be so Christmassy!!!!! I might start mulling the wine now.

Happy advent, tout le monde! And God bless us, every one.

 

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Comments

  1. waternymph88 says

    December 1, 2016 at 7:04 am

    Happy December! Your Chanukah Christmas sounds fab!

    Reply
  2. Cindy says

    December 1, 2016 at 8:42 am

    I decorated the table for breakfast at midnight last night, my children came down to a new Christmas book each and have stuffed themselves with pastries, milk and coins, all of the chocolate variety, and I am now listening to The Ronettes with my tea and visions of sugarplums dancing in my head. FIST. BUMP.

    Reply
  3. Sarah says

    December 1, 2016 at 9:47 am

    Oh my god YES. All these thoughts. It’s our daughter’s first Christmas and the first I’m hosting, so I’m feeling utterly frenzied with the need to make this one amazing. Miles of coloured fairy lights are arriving today. We’ve fallen at the first hurdle as we forgot to open the advent calendar before my partner went off to work this morning… I could honestly cry.

    Reply
  4. Jane says

    December 1, 2016 at 10:06 am

    I think coloured fairy lights are fab. My husband does not. He is away a lot too, also working.

    Our lovely new set of coloured lights should be dropping through my letterbox sometime today.

    Reply
  5. LB says

    December 1, 2016 at 10:12 am

    I like the sound of coloured fairy lights too! Where is a good place to get them? And we’re doing a big Christmas party for the first time this year. I was excited about it and now I’m feeling a bit scared and am going round in circles trying to figure out what food/drink to do, so any tips on that would be great. Thanks!

    Reply
  6. Elaine says

    December 1, 2016 at 10:23 am

    Get your kitchen radio switched to the Christmas station NOW. I did mine first thing this morning. Elaine x

    Reply
    • thestarter1978 says

      December 1, 2016 at 4:55 pm

      There’s a Christmas station?!? Is it called Christmas FM? I’ll have a look for it.

      Reply
  7. Sarahkirkham742@hotmail.com says

    December 1, 2016 at 10:31 am

    Merry Christmas Esther have a good one sickness free!!! XXX

    Reply
  8. Heather Barrett says

    December 1, 2016 at 10:58 am

    i always enjoy your blogs Esther but where do you get your energy from? I feel tired just reading todays. A very happy Christmas to you and yours.

    Reply
    • esthermcoren says

      December 1, 2016 at 1:07 pm

      I get my energy from white wine and just general mania

      Reply
  9. thestarter1978 says

    December 1, 2016 at 12:51 pm

    Oh God. I usually LOVE Christmas but this year I’m just not feeling it. I have done my Christmas cards, at least.

    Is all this cold weather making you feel Christmassy?

    Reply
  10. wishingforhorses says

    December 1, 2016 at 5:44 pm

    I know, right? Usually, I’m pretty blase about it all until the week before. This year however, I’ve been chomping at the bit since Halloween! It’s gonna be so Christmasy around here!

    Reply
  11. Linda1746 says

    December 1, 2016 at 6:26 pm

    Bad mother here ….. bladdy forgot the advent calendars this morning! Walking dog at 6am, dropping eldest off at her lift to school’s house, youngest off on a residential to Derbyshire dropped off and then raced to work. DH has been in London all week on a trial. Single parenting is seriously pissing me off! Oh and Harry Potter party to sort for Saturday. Christmas starts on the 4th …..

    Reply
  12. Linda1746 says

    December 1, 2016 at 6:30 pm

    I have coloured lights but this year I (bought in Jan #smugface) have white and warm white. They look like gold and silver.

    Reply
  13. Sharon says

    December 1, 2016 at 10:38 pm

    I can now start listening to Mariah Carey”s Christmas album in the car on the way to and back from work………fab, singing at the top of my voice trying to reach the notes where she disappears into the stratrosphere, with a little John Rutter for class

    Reply
  14. Charlene says

    December 2, 2016 at 4:56 pm

    You are so right about the Ocado order (23rd Dec 1-2pm). I have faffed around with mine so much already and I got an email from Ocado last week to say “madam do you really need all those turkeys in your basket”. !!

    Reply
    • esthermcoren says

      December 2, 2016 at 5:29 pm

      that is hilarious

      Reply
  15. Elizabeth says

    December 2, 2016 at 5:58 pm

    Can I ask whether anyone has discovered a good way to display Christmas cards? I don’t want to sound mental or as if I want my house to look like a catalogue, but I find it really hard to make cards look nice- spend ages decorating mantlepieces etc with carefully chosen things, then bung a load of cards on there? It looks really scrappy. But not putting them up to avoid looking rubbish makes me feel like a loon who has missed the whole point of Christmas.

    Reply
    • esthermcoren says

      December 2, 2016 at 10:03 pm

      Ha ha! Elizabeth I love this sort of lunacy. I have bookshelves and suspend string end to end anchored by the books and then hang cards over the top. If they’re even it looks cute

      Reply
  16. Sarah says

    December 2, 2016 at 11:03 pm

    Elizabeth I love Christmas but find cards annoying too I blue tack them to the back of the door in my downstairs loo!!!

    Reply
  17. kpcunningham says

    December 3, 2016 at 10:13 am

    After a perfectly wonderful few days away in Stockholm last weekend I have come down with THE WORST cold ever! My eyeballs hurt. And my hair follicles. I want to be thinking about all things Christmas (fairy lights, coloured or otherwise) but instead I’m wondering if I’m going to die. Trying to keep the Christmas spirit alive by playing this Spotify list by the Simple Things which is quite nice: http://www.thesimplethings.com/blog/christmasplaylist I am also feeling inadequate as the best Ocado slot I could manage was 5pm on Dec 22nd so now worrying that the sprouts will be off (if this is this even possible?) by the 25th. Fa la la la la la la la la.

    Reply
    • esthermcoren says

      December 3, 2016 at 1:47 pm

      Store your sprouts outside if possible – they will keep better than inside at room temp or in the fridge xx

      Reply

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