I am a self confessed Christmas enthusiast, and the beginning of January is always a bit of a uurrrgghhh time when all the festivities come to an end. This is the first day that it has all felt 'over'. I love Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (big kid inside never quite lost the magic) and enjoy a lot of the preparation and build up with DCs still at an age where nativity plays, carol services etc are part of the December diary. None of that would really work for the rest of the year! But some things might, and I've been thinking today about little Christmassy things and lessons that I want to carry on with in the coming weeks and months.
Baking and cooking with the DCs. We had a Christmas bake day after the school broke up for the holidays, and made a load of things to eat and share over Christmas. I would normally have been doing this myself in the week or so before, on the assumption that the DCs would find it dull, but not at all. We had a great day. So I'm going to carry on getting the family involved with food. DD wants to make dinner tonight!
Candles. I have candles in the loft that come out at Christmas, mainly matching our Christmas table decorations. It has been lovely to have candles burning in the house, and I'm going to keep on with this while the late afternoon and evenings are dark. Starting with a massive pillar candle from MIL, and anything left in the sales.
Family board games. Rubbish weather on a couple of days made us crack open some games that we've not played for ages. Not an every day activity perhaps, but I must remember that we have these things.
Meal planning. We were stuck in a rut in the autumn I think, with the same meals coming around each week and buying the same stuff out of habit. But I did a meal plan for the Christmas holidays and sat down and looked at some recipe books. We ate a lot of different things as a result. Obviously some things are best left for Christmas, but getting into the habit of not being in a habit as far as food goes would be good.
Bath night. I usually shower quickly in the morning, dress, and head to work. I liked having a couple of relaxing bubble baths in the last week or two, and this year I am going to use my Christmas smellies before we get to the next Christmas!
Flowers. We've had a small bunch of flowers in the hallway and they have brightened up the place and stopped DH dumping all his random papers on the table! Might try to keep this one going as well.
De-cluttering. Did this very quickly a week before Christmas so that relatives had space to sit and sleep. But it has been nice to have cupboards with space in them, and to be able to find stuff. I want to stop the accumulation of clutter, let go of homeware that is battered beyond use, stop hanging onto store cupboard ingredients that are fossilised, and DCs clothing that is too small or worn out, as well as my own. Last year I did that thing of turning hangers around in my wardrobe once I had worn something, and there was enough stuff that never got turned by the end of the year to fill a bag for the charity shop and put some items on Ebay in December. Mainly things of mine that didn't fit after weight gain and weight loss, and actually getting rid of them was satisfying (although I could do with some baggy trousers after eating a bit much this last week!)
Running. Maybe this is a new year resolution rather than a Christmas thing. I took the DCs to a fun run just before Christmas and was ashamed at how hard I found it. Time to dust off the trainers!
2017 looks busy now! Is there anything that you've been doing over Christmas that might carry on into the new year?