To tell you that it is only

[RabidEchidna]

307 days till Christmas

Do I have the record for the first Christmas thread of 2012?

65

Gawd, in 9 weeks my DC will be on their Christmas holidays

I'm sort-of pleased that they don't finish till the last minute. I'll be at work until the Thursday so I will have the weekend and the Friday before to do Last Minutes things

They get a bit meh if they have too long to wait .

64

63

By this stage, in 9 weeks time, we will have the fire lit (somehow, DH managed to persuade DD last year that Santa has magic dust to put it out) and the cookies made, and I will be getting out a dvd and the box of new PJs!! Ooohhhh!! I bought DD and DH's PJs over the weekend, and spotted mine - but I just couldn't face another q to buy them. But I can get mine easily in town whereas the other 2 are much harder.

The kids here are finishing the Thursday lunchtime. I will organise creche for Friday, and she will come to the office with me on Monday as I have to show my face for an hour and bringing her means I escape faster!!

62

I am so glad that schools are closing a few days before, DH will be finished on 21st so have lots of things planned. I have a lovely vision of family walks in the crisp air, watching christmas films with hot chocolate - the reality will probably be dd's over excitement leading to tantrums and me stressing about state of house! Ooh I can't wait!

I've not really done anything else Christmassy, it's dd's birthday at the end if the week. We are having a fancy dress party as its so close to Halloween, dd, who will be four, is going to Supergirl and ds, 9 months, is Superman! They are so cute, I know my years for matching costumes are limited so making the most of it!

I did get a few bits for Christmas Eve hampers, all from Poundland - bloody brilliant shop!

Our school closes on the 21st this year, a week later than usual! DP's current contract finishes on the 30th Nov and I'm really looking forward to spending some christmassy time with him without the kids and then as a family all together when they finish, although DS3 will had bloddy well better be bron by then so that will be nice too.

I am wearing a slightly festive jumper today! :)

Very keen to get bloomin Halloween out the way (not my cuppa tea at all) then I can briefly celebrate Bonfire night and DS2's birthday, then no misery can tell me to stop thinking about Christmas! Woohoo :o

I've got the boys pjs and DP's are on the way, not sure what I'll get for myself yet, I'm waiting to see which level of whale I am sporting after DS3 finally makes a show.
I have the cellophane cones to make snowman soup but am yet to drag mu bum to Makro to buy all the necessaries, another job for post DS3.

I was really hoping to start an Xmas eve cinema tradition with the kids this year but apparently there is no kids films being released around that time. I'll have to make do with a DVD, I'm thinking Arthur Christmas as we are yet to see that and of course The Muppet's Christmas Carol (Ultimate Christmas film IMO)

How lovely titsalina, having new baby at Christmas! Are you not hosting dinner too? I know what you mean about people moaning about christmas talk - I'm always getting "it's only August, September, October" . Once November arrives it will be full steam ahead.

I really want to get as organised as possible in November so I can enjoy December and all it's Christmasness! So at the moment I am gutting out every room, doing it slowly as I will loose interest otherwise.

My Christmas outside lights have arrived, I got them on offer. They are solar ones so not sure if they will work in the winter weather, I should really have looked into that before I bought them!

I am hosting dinner for 12 I have done it every year since I was about 9 though so I'm pretty ok with Christmas dinners. :)

We have the fun of starting again this Christmas after a very tough 2 years we ended up moving house and leaving all the decorations from my whole life in the loft, they were gone by the time we went to ask for them back, I have done my moping over that though and I'm excited to be getting new things to start traditions with the kids and DP, we have to have a fake tree because of DS's health problems so we ordered a 7ft frosted tree yesterday and a little 4ft one for the dining room!
I'm one of these people who likes the house to look like a grotto come Christmas.
We put our decorations up the first Sunday of advent, along with festive music blaring and hot chocolate for all! Just like my Mum used to do.

I've done a fair bit of pressie shopping and wrapping so far, turns out being housebound with SPD does have it's plus points. MyQuidco account has never been so full! :o

61

Wow - 12 for dinner and a newborn! You are loony brave! . It will be a lovely day though. We are also hosting, first time since dcs were born so that will great.

Although you have lost all your decs, it will be really great starting again in the new housw. You can get dcs to make lots of things. I have tried over the years to have different colour schemes, but have given up and the tree has loads of different unmatching baubles, home-made stuff etc. I actually really love it like that! We don't have tinsel on tree, that is saved for the rest of the house.

This is our first year in our new house so I have been scanning pinterest for different decorations dcs can make. I am getting slightly carried away - the house will be full of salt dough at the rate I'm going!

2 months till Christmas Eve

The [hgrin] seems highly innapropriate on the Christmas Thread.

60

Wehay!!! 60 - I can almost smell that lovely Christmas tree smell!

Two months today!!

We booked our Christmas lunch from the office earlier this week (I had nothing to do with it, one of the other girls took advantage of the boss being on the back foot last Friday to get him to agree to lunch and afternoon off instead of earlybird!!). The office notice about the Kiddie party came out on Monday (so cheered DD up, as there were thoughts it might not happen this year as the main organiser for the past decade died in February). And there was another email asking about preferred dates for the big organisation-wide party came out yesterday (there's 2 options the last week before Christmas).

And lots of the shops seemed to go into Christmas mode this week too!!

I was really bold and came in late this morning as I went into 1 large supermarket and got the last of Halloween treats, but also a good few packs of cans (7up, coke and orange, oh, and tonic), 1 box each of half price biscuits and chocs, and a load of baking ingredients - all on a 10% back deal that runs out this weekend (get the money 2 weeks before Christmas).

59

70S WILL BE IN CHARGE FOR THE NEXT TWO DAYS, I AM OFF CHRISTMAS SHOPPING

OOOh Enjoy Rabid!!

I am sure 70's will crack the whip and have us all organised and excited like little kids by the time you get back!!

Testing a theory...
[xgrin]

Ok that didn't work, sorry (any idea how to get the Christmas hats on smilies - the Halloween ones DO look wrong here...)

no Christmas Smilies yet...

and yes the Hallowe'en ones look a bit odd, but they're handy when you scroll back to pinpoint thread times
(like the Torch, the Dragon, the Bunnies) or just look at the date [hgrin]

58

I did my mass amazon shop for all the family gifts this morning. Starting to get festive.

I'm in hospital at the moment my DP brought me in a stack of magazines, a couple of them are Christmas ones! Hurrah!