A Jolly Holly Christmas - It's the 2022 Christmas Chatter Thread!

mandco

Spendless said:

Thanks for new thread. We are going to sis-i-law's tonight. She is hosting for the very first time. It's always been us or a friend's house and I refused to host both Xmas and NYE.

God I can't say I miss those days of non sleeping children. I must have missed the post where you explained but is Taz one of your children or a grandchild? 
 

he's my youngest we have quite a big age gap between him & the others so he's still in the I kinda believe stage. He has asd so any kind of event plays havoc with his sleep I think its the anticipation/not knowing what to expect.

C_J

Thank you @princesskitty29 for the new thread!  I nipped out to a neighbouring town for some quick shopping yesterday and called into The Works, where I bagged some smashing Christmassy bargains for my grandchildrens' "It's Nearly Christmas" boxes 2022. I bought some colour-your-own decoration kits, a Christmas snap card game, a Christmas bingo game, Christmas fuzzy felt boxes, Christmas colouring books and stickers, two design-your-own Christmas baubles (where you put your own picture or drawing inside them) and two packs of Fimo-style clay kits for making santa and snowmen etc. I'm not sure about that last one (might the clay dry out before next Christmas? It's in a sealed bag so hopefully not). Everything was either 50% or 75% off, so I have the bulk of the things I need to fill two boxes for just an £8 spend in total.

princesskitty29

Good to see you all here!    We're having a quiet night in here, we bought some M&S party food then once the boys are in bed DH and I are going to play the Only Fools & Horses board game I bought then settle down to watch the hour long Emmerdale episode - it's our guilty pleasure!  

Treasurequeen glad you like the name! 

mandco so it wasn't just mine not sleeping on Christmas eve!

CJ I bet The Works sale was great - it sounds like you got some good stuff. I'm tempted to pop and have a look next week but fear I may be too late!

3forholidays

A belated happy new year to all of you! Best wishes for 2022.

princesskitty29

Happy New Year to you all! I hope you’re all well? I have set up my Christmas 2022 spreadsheet so I’m all set to go this year! I’ve actually already had a few ideas for people, some that I had before the Christmas just gone but had already bought presents for them.

 

Some goals for this year are to declutter my house, do a bit of decorating, move more and be better organised this Christmas! I got quite stressed in the lead up to Christmas last year as I’d left things late like wrapping, writing cards and making bunting. I had shopped in advanced and had been very organised that way so I had no excuse, I really do need to start earlier this year and accept I need to do things before the decorations are up!

 

Not much sale shopping happening here, I haven’t been out to the shops (although I imagine I’m too late for all of that anyway) and online I tend to find one thing on one website, one thing on another and never all together on one site so I don’t have to pay postage, which makes the discount worth it.

I had to pop into Tesco earlier, not a scrap of discounted wrapping paper in sight which I actually need, although I did find a Grinch t-shirt in what will be DS1’s size next year for £1 so I snapped that up. He’s always loved the Grinch so hopefully he will still like it next year!

C_J

princesskitty29 said:

I got quite stressed in the lead up to Christmas last year as I’d left things late like wrapping, writing cards and making bunting. I had shopped in advanced and had been very organised that way so I had no excuse, I really do need to start earlier this year and accept I need to do things before the decorations are up

Oh @princesskitty29 - that’s me, too! I really love Christmas and think I am so organised, with all-year-round shopping and detailed spreadsheets, but come December I always end up in a mad rush trying to write cards and wrap presents because I have left it all too late. It spoils the festive fun to be so het up, so this year I have a new plan: I am going to wrap presents as I buy them. I’ve never liked doing that before because despite everything being logged in Excel I might forget what is in a wrapped parcel/change my mind about giving that item to that person/whatever but the easiest solution is probably just to stick a post-it note on the wrapped parcel reminding me what it is. 

I treated myself to the Boots Macmillan advent calendar yesterday, half price in the sale and paid for using Boots points and due to be delivered tomorrow. It seems to have some quite lovely things in it (and they are of a decent size) so some will be little indulgent treats for me and some will become advent calendar fillers for my daughters.  I’ve already made a list of suggested contents for the 2022 calendars and will pick them off gradually over the year, a couple per month. I have already placed lots of things in my cart on AliExpress which will be great advent calendar fillers for my two sons in law - mini torches, bushcraft fire starter stick things, laser pointers, novelty USB sticks, mystic fire sachets, snowflake shaped hex spanner key rings, sporks etc etc - so I feel quite organised already! There are plenty of inexpensive bargains with free shipping on there, if you have the time and patience to trawl through it all, and it doesn’t matter how long the items take to arrive when you order them in January 😁

Redredrobin

Thanks for the new thread .

A very quiet Christmas and new year here , a few tears when Dd opened the felt figure of the pooch i had made for her before we had to put him to sleep but she loved it .

i have had a little look in a few of the sales and managed to buy 9/24 lucky dip advent items for Dd , and I've discovered Groupon ( better late than never ) so I've got a lovely set of stud earrings coming for her for Christmas.

slm6002

CJ I thought I would forget what I had already wrapped, so took a picture on my phone before wrapping to help me remember

C_J

slm6002 said:

CJ I thought I would forget what I had already wrapped, so took a picture on my phone before wrapping to help me remember

@slm6002 Oh, that’s brilliant! What a great idea 😁

mandco

2022 isn't off to the greatest start spent 4 days practically bedridden with one of the worst migraine ever  I think the serious lack of sleep finally caught up with me and now dd's boyfriend has tested positive for covid he felt fine yesterday morning had a bit of headache after work and then woke up this morning with a nasty cough and feeling exhausted. Dd's just started a new job this week so lousy timing if she needs time off she needs to do lft everyday before going in if she stays symptom free so need to try and source some as they have been oos everywhere locally.

Haven't been to any shops other than the supermarket yet this year so probably missed out on any bargains but I don't really need anything so trying to spend as little as possible this month- I'm hoping we might be able to actually have a proper holiday this year so want to start saving for that - I'm trying to think positive and hoping this year we'll finally start getting back to a more normal life and covid will become more like the seasonal flu -we'll have to live with it and vaccinate the vunerable but it won't keep shutting everything down 

still waiting on a couple of presents I ordered before xmas 1 is stuck with hermes despite being sent next day delivery and some still haven't even been dispatched despite multiple emails saying they are sorry for the delay and they would be sent as soon as possible. 

Need to take down the last of the decs today - Taz wants to keep the tree up so trying to think of a theme to switch to the only one I could think of was valentines day but it seems a bit early for that?  Any suggestions much appreciated

Princesskitty my goals this year are very similar   I would like to have a holiday abroad too if things settle down 
How are your parents doing?
I def need to be more organised for xmas as I start of well but then it all somehow ends up being kind of rushed last minute. while it still ended up being later than I hoped and a bit of a rush I actually manage to get everything wrapped before xmas eve last year. I do like the idea of wrapping as I go but I usually have to jenga things into a case and not sure that will work if they are wrapped. I've also found more places are cutting back on packaging and have open front boxes which makes it more awkward.

Cj I'll have to check out aliexpress - I left it too late last year