Our building up to Christmas traditions

Along with the build up to Christmas come a whole host of traditions, some that I've put in place over the years but lots that have just sort of happened!

Christmas starts for me with an early trip to the garden centre when they've just opened their Christmas displays. Our local Haskins does several different themed areas, and if you get there early in the season you can enjoy everything before it all gets picked over. I never actually buy anything, but I love browsing the displays and seeing what they've decided should be in fashion this year.

Come December and the elves are back. We've been happily welcoming the elves into our home for the run up to Christmas for what feels like forever. There has been some criticism in recent years that their antics have become less interesting compared to the more exciting earlier years, but they've managed a few surprises. 

We don't watch much television so we never buy a paper TV guide, except when it's time to get the Christmas TV guide. It's a big part of my husband's Christmas, so he always makes sure to buy one as soon as they are released. But we very rarely splurge on the expensive Radio Times, he always manages to find one of the more budget friendly ones. 

One of our most time consuming traditions is the yearly baking, assembling and decorating of the gingerbread houses. I've been making two for years, almost always making my own gingerbread from scratch. I've got it down to a fine art now and although it's an effort I really do enjoy making them. The children love decorating them too, and they are always delicious.

At some point before Christmas we always sit down and watch Nativity! I'm not quite sure why this film appeals to me so much, but it wouldn't be Christmas without watching it. My favourite part is the establishing shot for the Mayor's reception which was filmed at Coombe Abbey where we got married, and I love all the festive songs and decorations. It's just a really fun film building up to a really sweet Nativity celebration.

Delivering the neighbour's Christmas cards is another festive tradition that the children have been helping me with for a few years. When they were younger I used to let them go out together, anxiously watching them from the window to make sure that they didn't get lost in our tiny cul-de-sac. Now I still send them out, but I don't feel the need to stand there hovering any more!

I never introduced Christmas Eve boxes, but the elves do always bring new pyjamas for the children when they leave on Christmas Eve. As they are a little more fussy now I've asked for some help this year to make sure that they get a set they really want!

Also on Christmas Eve we still make and sprinkle reindeer food. I keep it simple with just oats, some Cheerios, raisins and a bit of sugar for some sparkle. I love seeing them out in the garden in their pyjamas sprinkling it on the grass, even though they are enormous teenagers now!

The final Christmas Eve tradition is my husband wrapping his presents for me at the last minute. I didn't even realise that this was a family tradition until my daughter mentioned it this year. I hadn't known it was such a big part of her Christmas!

What things do you find yourself doing every year as Christmas approaches?

Our first family escape room

At the weekend we treated Harry to an escape room for his birthday treat. This was the first time that we had tried such a thing as a family, although my husband and I had both separately completed an escape room before. A few years ago my parents and I did Time Lock: Mission Berlin in Worthing. We were terrible at it! I don't know if the room was particularly difficult or if we just weren't very good, but we were constantly asking for help, and even then we only just made it out in time!

The escape room that we did at the weekend was another of the three in Worthing, which are all run by the same company. Smugglers Ruin is inspired by local history, as you attempt to retrieve a precious barrel of gin from the town hall. Once booked, all of these escape rooms are exclusive to your group, which was a big plus point for me.

I was a little apprehensive as to how we would get on. Harry can get overwhelmed quite quickly, especially when there is a time pressure, and Mia can get frustrated if she doesn't understand something. I was worried that I'd be spending the whole time trying to keep everyone happy, rather than actually solving puzzles! But in the end I needn't have worried, as we did brilliantly. We solved the room in just 43 minutes, and we didn't need a single hint!

Obviously no spoilers, but we were helped massively by the fact that Harry has a particular knack for a certain type of puzzle that I think would have taken the rest of us much longer to solve. We all worked really well as a team finding all the things that we needed for the puzzles, and we all chipped in with our own ideas which helped us to solve them together. We had an enormous amount of fun, and were talking about it for days afterwards. 

I would love to do a few more escape rooms but unfortunately it's not a cheap hobby. I can understand  why it's expensive - only a few people can take part at a time, it takes a long time to run the room and to set it up each time, and once someone has done a room they won't be coming back even with a different group of people. It was worth it but was definitely a treat rather than something that we'll be able to do regularly, even though we all loved it! There are plenty of others to try locally, so I'm hoping that we will be able to do another one together soon.

Have you ever tried an escape room?

How I entice my teenagers down from their bedrooms

When my children were little they always wanted to be close to me. They only went to their rooms for sleeping, and they never got up to any mischief because they were always in the same room as I was! Now they are older they prefer their own space a lot more, and spend most of their time when at home in their bedrooms. This started during the pandemic, when they did their home schooling video calls in their rooms, but of course it's a natural part of growing up too. 

Sometimes it's nice for me to have a bit more peace and quiet to work on my own projects! But I do also miss them, especially at the weekends when sometimes it feels as though the entire day has gone and I've hardly seen them. So I've been trying to find ways to entice them out of their rooms and into spending some time with me.

Anything food related is a good one for Mia. A few times I've taken her out to the café at the garden centre around the corner and treated her to a fancy hot chocolate and a cake. As a bonus there is a Hobbycraft in the same retail park and so we often make a stop there too. We always seem to have a voucher to spend, or else there is something on special offer!

I can also entice them downstairs to watch something together if I provide a favourite snack like popcorn or chocolate fingers. And Mia loves baking, especially if licking a spoon is involved!

Sometimes I'm able to drag one child at a time out for a walk. We have a little loop that runs down through our estate and back through a foresty footpath. I entice them with the promise of some private talking time with just me which they like, it's a good way to both get some exercise and also chat through anything that's bothering them.

Recently I've got back into doing jigsaws again and I've discovered that they both like helping out from time to time. Mia spotted this Squishmallow jigsaw while I was browsing on Amazon the other day, and I had a voucher so I bought it for us to do together. It's a very challenging one! I'm trying to keep away from it during the day so that we can do it together!

I also like to find a television show or film that we'll all enjoy watching together. At the moment I'm sitting down with Harry and we are working our way through Red Dwarf, which has recently been put up onto iPlayer. I was a massive fan as a teenager and watched it over and over, I always have a Red Dwarf quote in my head! But I discovered that there have been three more seasons that I've never even watched because they were on Dave and I didn't know how to watch them! So we are just about to get to the new episodes which is quite exciting. Harry has also been loving Look Around You which is also on iPlayer, it's a sort of spoof science television show series which was on a few years ago. It's very surreal and very funny. 

Sometimes I can persuade the children to come downstairs and sit at the kitchen table with me while we all work on our own projects, especially if there's a pack of biscuits involved. They often do some homework, and I like seeing what they are up to at school. They also do things without screens, like reading or drawing. It's nice to all be in the same space but still doing our own thing!

I much prefer this stage of parenthood to the early baby and toddler days!