The Simple Bare Necessities feat. Gratitude & Recipes

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Afternoon :santa2:


Thanks rtandon - we really have been able to make some lovely family memories today. I'm feeling very blessed and rather full - only just got round to having lunch a bit ago. Egg mayo sangers :j


BG seems to have got the hang of christmas, presents, present unwrapping and having a jolly auld time, generally! I've discovered I wrap presents too well for toddler tiny fingers! We've enjoyed a speck of fresh air and exercise too - hence late lunch So all in all, we are having a ball. Two friends very kindly gave pressies to BG - they were thoughtfully chosen, and BG will enjoy them immensley. Our Christmas has been/will continue to be, very modest - but I have to say that it's been wonderfully enjoyable thus far. BG has taken the time to explore all the gifts that they have been given by Santa, friends and family - all opened and then carefully put together as 'mines' :rotfl: - and is already enjoying playing with some of the toys. We're very blessed here at Greying Towers :A


We've been messaged by friends, and have messaged back It's lovely to know that people are enjoying time with family - or fine company with themselves, in their favourite spot - the garden


I realise that things may change as BG gets older, but I think I have been a little surprised how 'easy' it has been to......... generate the type of Christmas that we wanted? I've not once felt that there wasn't 'enough', and as yet, have felt no pressure to try to 'keep up' with anyone else's type of Christmas. Perhaps being 'old' does have it's benefits - I'm too set in my ways Or perhaps i've been round long enough to know what's important, and what is not - and we've majored on the important bits.........................



We have sufficient of everything - despite the lack of turkey and an 'obvious' Christmas dinner :rotfl:- we have enjoyed exchanging modest gifts and cards (thank you to the people that smiled and said thank you for the homemade ones........ :rotfl:) and delighted in BG's reaction to things - the latest being 'wow' on seeing the final decorations yesterday afternoon (put up hastily as I was all-behind). We don't really have that many decorations, and have had to be pragmatic about not getting out decorations that are 'catnip' to a toddler's grasp :rotfl: But what I saw as 'ordinary' and modest, made BG gasp 'wow' with excitement I want to bottle that appreciation of simplicity and wheel it out every year ......................


I love finding joy in ordinary. Long may it continue.


Ta for popping in. Appreciated.


Love to you&yours :heart2:


Greying X

Cheery_Daff

Merry Christmas lovely Greying, so cheery to read about your Christmas :j I reckon most of us have pretty "ordinary" Christmasses so no need to worry about keeping up Sounds like BG has had a marvellous day

rtandon27

GP - Our 'ordinary' consisted of very ordinary crackers, cheese, ham, grapes, satsumas & various bits of gifted naughty savory & sweet 'treats' spread out on the table in an all day smorgasbord of nibbling in front of the telly - I'm never going to look at another pr!ngle or sm@rtie again!

Greying_Pilgrim

Ha ha Cheery - i concur - I think most of us do have "ordinary" Christmases. It's just the meedja - press or social - that would, perhaps, sometimes have us believe the contrary. But it occured to me just now, that this year - perhaps more than any other year (although it's a common theme since I gave birth to BG) i have watched sooooo little TV, and this month, I've watched pretty much zero. DH asked me a couple of weeks ago, had I seen such and such an advert for some company or other - possibly one of the supermercados, and i had to admit, I hadn't. But thinking about it, I don't think I've seen any Chrimbobs adverts. How refreshing! But also I've received no subliminal messages to buy lots of food for those 'unexpected' guests, or to purchase a new wooden dining table - since my old wooden table (which we've had for 20 years, and it's previous owners had for at least 20 before that!), won't please grandma........ You're quite right Cheery - we're like-minded souls on MSE - irrespective of our situations - and I certainly don't feel 'keeping up' pressure when I'm here. But thankfully I don't feel the need in RL to either - you know, amongst the folk who have yet to learn the ways of :money: Long may it continue Ideally up until BG is an adult - and then if there are any 'must have' toys, they can bloomin well buy them, themselves :rotfl:


rtandon - don't you think that the person who came up with the pr1ngl3s 'strapline' that may involve popping and may involve not stopping was something of a psychology genius...... :rotfl: I have an unopened tube in my eyeline, and as long as it stays unopened, I am safe, unopened, safe, unopened, safe, open me, eat, open me, eat...... eeehh??? whaaa??? I mean as long as it stays unopened, I know that I will not need to eat all the yummy, crispy, crunchy, crispy, crisp goodies, trapped inside.......


Onto other matters! :rotfl:


I've just watched that prog (of tape) with Chris Packham and Micheala Strachan about the Christmas skies. I normally find Mr P too irritating to watch, but he was very good in this - steading influence of Micheala? Very interesting prog too - Could have been longer and done more justice to the Germinid meteor show - but having said that, it was fascinating to know that such a light show is caused by nothing more than grains of sand.


We've had a wonderful, simple, joy-filled day. I'm grateful for;


the simplicity of child's play

a camera that can tape precious moments, and aid the making of precious memories

that within our simplicity and sufficient - there was abundance.


Thank you for popping in. Appreciated.


Greying X

Smurphington

I always spend Christmas at my parents and when I was younger and my Grandparents were alive and other family members would pop in it was lovely and vibrant and although never extravagant it was lots of fun. However now it feels quite stale and stressful, my brother lives overseas and my mum spends all day in the kitchen preparing traditional fare (me and lo are veggie so its meat alternatives for us which probably adds to my poor mothers stress) and my dad who isn't a fan of Xmas can be a bit grumpy so there is always a bit of tension! I think next year I will break with tradition and spend it at my house with the small person and do it our way and if the parents wish to pop by they will be most welcome

Cheery_Daff

Good plan to break traditions sometime Smurphington. Mr Cheery & I got together many moons ago one November, and went our separate ways for Christmas, but neither of us have big families, and things were rather, er, *quiet* (I stayed with my mum, who went to bed at 7pm and left me watching Christmas tv, unavle to go anywhere else as I didn't have a car).

After that we went on holiday over Christmas & New Year for several years in a row and that broke any expectation that we would go to see family on Christmas day and we now happily stay home by ourselves and do family visits later in the week

Greying, how interesting about you not watching much in the way of Christmas tv. I bet that really does have an effect. I've watched none (I still haven't got the ariel plugged in since we moved :rotfl: I do watch the occasional catch up programme online but no mindless tv watching). We are truly more peaceful when we plough our own furrows.

{Cheery guiltily tries to push her stash of Country Living magazines hastily under the sofa but is impeded by all the other things she already shoved under there} :rotfl:

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:


Smurphington - if it's any help, I could have written aspects of your post verbatim Had we chosen to go down the route of Christmas with my parents It would have been a very similar scenario of meat eaters & veggies - and my DDad is no real fan of Christmas - particularly, it seems, starting it 'before' Christmas Eve, and does, indeed get quite 'bah-humbuggy' about it all. Which is not actually nice to be around. We didn't - when we were young - have grandparents or other family members popping in on Christmas Day - and it would have made the day dire if they had! :eek: So whilst I am quite purposeful in trying to knit together a 'Greying Family Christmas' - which will look different, quite, quite different to many a 'traditional' Christmas - I hope that I incorporate joy for BG from the get-go. Only time will tell if we get it right, I suppose. And I'm fully prepared to be lambasted about 'something' that I loused up, when BG is an adult.........


Talking about simple things, BG seemed to get into the spirit of Advent - with the rider that i didn't want it to be all about chocolate. They enjoyed contributing to our advent calendar each day. They (mostly) shared chocolate treats with their beloved papa (the real melt-down came one day when I gave two different types of chocolate, and BG couldn't work out if they were getting less than Papa so held onto both I learnt my lesson that BG is too young yet to determine what is the same, but packaged differently ).



Of course, there was no Advent Calendar yesterday - and BG did notice, asking for it before they asked for chocolate. And then at bedtime, they wanted me to 'mummy slect stori' - which is because I had picked up some Christmas 'themed' story books from..... £world?? (is that the one that is still open? or £land????), that had 4 different stories in them - so I got 5 over a period of weeks in November. Anyway, the stories were excerpts or poems. Some good, some bad, some possibly not suitable for toddlers (Little Match Girl anyone??????:eek:), but BG had obviously really taken to having a 'special slected' story each evening in December - and missed it Thankfully, our good friend had come to the rescue with their Christmas present of a wonderful Christmassy illustrated story book - which BG and Papa enjoyed the whole of, together :T



But it just shows, doesn't it - it is often the simpler things that 'stick' - mostly when you don't think that they will.



I think we will be having a lazy day today. I would like to get out for a walk 'somewhere', but don't want to bump into the hoards doing the same thing (selfish of me, I know).



Tea this evening is likely to be cardboard box fish, oven chips and mushy peas. We had mushroom and green bean coconut curry, lentil dhal and basmati rice (made from scratch) for tea last night. BG ate a big bowl of dhal, and then amused us, playing with their new toys under the dining room table, which we slow coaches finished our tea. How many times has that scenario been played out over the decades???


Right, must go. Coffee is drained, and I need to find something to munch for brekkie.


Ta for popping by. Appreciated.


Greying X

apple_muncher

I also watched (on a recording) the stars programme. I found it quite interesting when they were actually talking about the skies and not travelogue-ing. Dh commented that he was so pleased to know that his licence fee was being well spent!



We too have watched little tv, and it has been most enjoyable.

Greying_Pilgrim

apple_muncher wrote: »

I also watched (on a recording) the stars programme. I found it quite interesting when they were actually talking about the skies and not travelogue-ing. Dh commented that he was so pleased to know that his licence fee was being well spent!

But that's why in one main respect they were the 'wrong' presenters - it should have been cosmologists or meteorologists - and there are certainly some media-savvy presenters who are trained in those disciplines. But just the same as 'Celebrities' used to get the freeby holiday with a presenting gig thrown in when Cliff Mitchelmore's Holiday programme used to air on the BBC (remember that, anyone???), the 'powers that be' think we won't watch educational programmes unless it is presented by a 'populist' face. It would have been nice to see some other wildlife of Norway (the eagle bit was interesting), I've seen the Sami and their reindeer so many times............Kudos to C & M though, they didn't ask the obvious question about how much money the herder had in his bank account........ which every other documentary has asked.......


It could have been an hour programme about each aspect/country and could have included more wildlife/landscape info 'under the skies', and less - as you say - 'travelogue' that has been done to death before. For instance - I'd never seen those ibex - but was interested that they had a very similar pattern on their belly that the reindeer have........


Greying X

Smurphington

Next year for advent I'm going to try and be quite prepared and do the advent book calendar using books we already own and library books - I think unwrapping books she already has will still be met with excitement.

One of my first memories of Christmas is the milk man delivering bottles of fizzy 'pop alongside the usual milk and me and my brother so delighted by the coloured bottled. I'm not sure bringing them back from the supermarket could have the same effect