Happy Christmas, One And All!

But the angel said to them,

"Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 

Today in the town of David, a Saviour has been born to you;

he is the Messiah, the Lord.

...

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel,

praising God and saying

"Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests"

Happy Christmas, the birth of our Lord!

A Beautiful Sight, We're Happy Tonight

This is another Christmas post, how self-indulgent am I?  This is more for the benefit of dear friends living abroad at the moment who are missing our very British Christmas and don't get to witness the extravagant re-telling of my thrilling anecdotes in the flesh. Haha. Flesh. Ha. 
Last night, my brother Jerome came home (ha, rhymes) from university and we merrily began the festive task of decorating the tree. It was a night of....well...there were ups and downs haha. 

APOLOGIES in advance for the utter lack of correlation between story and pictures. 

We dug out the boxes of decorations and realised the new box of fairy lights was missing. Searched all manner of secret hiding places but to no avail. They were nowhere to be found. Gone. Sucked into the black hole that is 92 Gloucester Road. 

Went back to the cupboard - and now I must interrupt myself here and draw your attention to the fact that this cupboard is that cupboard everyone has where you're allowed to be a massive mess. Y'know, you quickly open the door, shove something in and slam it shut. Tape it back up. Reapply the restraints etc. So immediately, it didnt bode well that we were looking for strings of lights in said cupboard. 
So anyway, I spied a plug poking out of this mountain of accumulated crap and realised with dismay that they were last year's lights. My mother, in a fit of 'let's get Christmas out the way', had just bundled them into a ball and thrown them into the back. 

So we drove to 24hr Tesco to buy new lights and LO! they'd run out. We bought a kilo of Quality Street and some champagne instead. 

Yeah, this is a giraffe wearing a wreath, get over it. 

At home, we found a bag of lights in the back of another cupboard that all worked apart from a section in the middle. Anyone care to explain how that is possible???
They were SO tangled, so Jerome spent ages unravelling them, only to realise they were so long, they stretched the length of the entire house. Infuriated by the ridiculousness of the situation, we forced them onto the tree and wound the rest round the whole sitting room. 

Exhausted, we opened the box of decorations and found the new box of perfectly working lights sitting on top. Mocking us with their presence. 

And then I made paper chains. And ate some doughnuts. And we watched Elf.

Happy Christmas, one and all!

On Christmas Night All Christians Sing

Glad tidings, and peace to all mankind!
How are we all feeling about Chriiiiistmassss? Tis a mere twelve days away, I feel like I should be singing the Twelve Days of Christmas everyday. 
HA, at junior school, we once did this bizarre performance of a poem based on that song, about this woman's letters to the guy who is sending her eleven lords-a-leaping. The rents absolutely loved it, lols a-plenty. 

I'm sitting writing this at 3.30 pm and it's pretty much pitch black outside. What is the deal with the weird darkness?  I do not remember it being this dark last year! Sort it out, atmosphere. However, I very much approve of the crisp coldness we have been experiencing this week, gets me right in the festive mood. JJ and I watched Gavin and Stacey Christmas special last night and then I watched Elf. It. Was. Awesome. I must say though, I am thoroughly disapproving of this strange mix of hail and rain and thunderstorms that have been maurading about the west country today. This is not the festive chill that I desire. I had to bring the freaking wreath in off the front door because of the gales and driving rain! 

ALSO, I did some Christmas posting today and it cost SIXTEEN POUNDS postage. That is 1600 pennies. MANY PENNIES. FU royal mail, don't you dare lose it.

Anyway, enough of that. ON WITH THE SHOW!!


ONE.
I finished reading One Day ages ago and forgot to tell you how GOOD it was. You should definitely read it. It's not particularly challenging or intellectual, just a good old read. I'm trying very hard now to get into this:

but I am str-ugg-ling. It's so lame, the ones I've read before were great but this is proving more difficult to get into than a Terry's chocolate orange (I've never quite got a handle on the whole tap-and-unwrap fandango....)  If anyone has any tips, book or Terry related, let me knowwww. 

TWO. 

This is almost too shameful to write and I am blushing from head to toe, cringing mightily, but....who watched the X Factor final? It was a ridiculous affair, dragged out over two whole nights, and the first night was so excessive that I was convinced I was about to learn who had won, only to be informed that I had to wait another whole day and then watch for TWO HOURS for something that took a mere few seconds. And everyone knew who was going to win. Anyhoo, I'm glad I watched because Coldplay were SO GOOD. I'm guessing most of you reading this watched it because it was compulsive Sunday night viewing but OH my days. The UV! The lights! The performing! The wristbands! THE WRISTBANDS!!! If you didn't watch it, thank goodness I was here to aid you. Watch it here NOW. 

THREE. 
It seems a little bit naughty to give this a whole section to itself but it's been a really long time and anyone who knows me well knows how long I've been waiting for this....
Last week I interviewed for a Teaching Assistant job at a school in Swindon and I thought it went really badly and was really sad all day, but then they rang me in the afternoon and offered me the job!  I couldn't BELIEVE it, I was so convinced I'd messed it all up. I went in this morning to sign myself up and prove that I'm not a murderer or pervert and that I'm healthy and won't die on the job. January 4th, here we COME. I also had my PGCE interview this week and it went well, thanks for all the messages and prayers!
This has been a bit text heavy, sorry. Here's a picture of Pin as a reward. 

FOUR. 
My amazingly clever brother Jerome managed to secure some incredible media coverage last week for his final year's exhibition, East Wing X, at the Courtauld Institute. GO HERE for a look at a lovely installation, a great picture of him and evidence that he is great. If you didn't see it in the last sentence, I was telling you to go HERE to see the great article. That was HERE, look HERE.  That's right, well done. 

FIVE.
We put up some Christmas decorations this week but havent got the tree yet. I'm fuming, I want a tree all day every day for the whole of December. In readiness for said tree (haha tree is a funny word: "It was working until you showed up, you big tree"), here are some pictures of Christmas stuff. And trees. And a nice Christmassy snowy Abbey.  

HAPPY CHRISTMAS, ONE AND ALL!


x X x X x 

In Dulci Jublio

Glad tidings, merry men!   


I have been feeling SUPER Christmassy this week; the weather being so delightfully arctic has definitely hurried this along. It's been a very exciting week, Matt and his brother Dan's clothing brand launched, I started my Christmas shopping, JJ bought a car that you wear and I met up with my uni friends. All in all, pretty brilliant.

So let's jump straight in!


ONE. 
I thought I'd share one of my favourite Christmas songs with you now that we're into December and it's legal to play such music. Just press play now and have it on in the background while you read the rest of this week's offering. I love this, but I also find it hilarious haha, especially when the drums come in, it's so military. Military Christmas haha. 



TWO. 
Continuing the festive theme, I went to Bath last weekend with Matt (see last week's post!) and it was mental busy but I was so enthralled by the shop window displays, some of them are so beautiful. Anyway, I was thinking about Great Mate Katie who is stuck in silly old California (hell on earth, I hear....all that sun....) and missing the very British run up to Christmas. Sooo, I took some photos of the best Christmas displays so she doesn't feel too left out. And you can all look at them and enjoy them too, although you could just go to Bath and look at them with your own eyes. Which is your favourite one? Share.

THREE. 

I posted a small announcement about this last week, a mini-post if you will. Matt and Dan launched their clothing brand, it's very exciting. They have 5 different designs, 1 specifically for girls, and they're very reasonably priced!  Go and have a look, maybs get one for your sibling/spouse/lover/parent/teacher/driving instructor/I dunno. They're really great though and very exclusive. Not gonna bump into someone else wearing one. Unless you live in Malmesbury, then you might.  But go and have a look anyway! http://greatest.bigcartel.com/ 

PHOTOGRAPHY BY TOMAL PRICE - http://www.tomalprice.com/

PHOTOGRAPHY BY TOMAL PRICE - http://www.tomalprice.com/

FOUR. 

I mentioned above that I started Christmas shopping this week; I went to Bath (yes, that's the only place I ever go) with my dad to look for his present to me (eep!) and also to try to get some things for my brother and other people. It was SO fun, so Christmassy and pleasantly busy, as in....there were other people there doing their Christmas shopping too and it was very sociable, being all there together, buying things for friends. Fun! But it wasn't too busy that you just got really angry and ended up hating everyone around you. That happens to me a lot. And I get really hot in my coat coz it's cold outside but hot in the shops so you end up with a fever by the end. But that didn't happen. And I mainly began this ramble just so I could show you the funny thing I bought. My dad was a little incredulous as I handed over the funds. But it smells AMAZING and I keep walking past and it being all 'OOH! Christmas, hoorah'. I also found a book called Strictly English about correct language usage. I wannit. 

That other decoration in the background is one I found outside by the bin last year, thus uncovering my mother's attempts to throw it away.  It hangs all year round in the kitchen as her punishment.  

FIVE. 

Stumbled onto this: Tastefully Offensive. Go nuts. HAHA. 

HAPPY BEGINNING OF CHRISTMAS. 

Peace and merry wishes. 

 X X X X X