Hello all! I absolutely love Christmas too... though my username is due to DS’s favourite Sarah and Duck episode, not specifically festive! I also lurk on the Christmas boards, might ‘join’ soon when I get my Christmas crafting properly underway 
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Decided against the baubles as I didn’t love them. My tree is quite crowded now and we haven’t got room for a bigger one so any new decoration has to be worthy of ‘bumping’ one of the lower-ranking ones 
. We also often buy them on holiday, it’s lovely to have the memories. And there’s some we’ve made too.
Instead I bought myself some earrings. They were definitely an unnecessary spend but not too expensive and I’ve admired them for a while. As I’m doing the Cleaner’s job without any help from DH, i thought it was fair enough .
But no more frivolous spending now. DH and I had a serious talk about the work we want to do to the house, and the first draft architect’s plans. They were a bit disappointing on all fronts really. In the loft we can fit a double room but not a en-suite, due to planning constraints (the existing rear extension has used some of the permitted volume so dormers and head height will be the limiting factor). So that means we probably wouldn’t use it as our bedroom as we currently have an en suite. I don’t think DM will want to go up another flight of steeper stairs to a guest room so that would mean putting one of the Dc up there. I can’t help feeling that will be odd, as they are both quite young still and it’s better having DS near us in the night. Has anyone put a smallish child in a loft bedroom? DD is in a teeny box room right now - I’m not sure what we’ll do when she outgrows her cot bed!
Downstairs is a bit rubbish too - due to supporting walls etc I can’t create a layout that flows well or a kitchen that is as big as I’d hoped, and yet I’ll have odd leftover spaces. It’s not a disaster but a bit disheartening when we’ve waited 11 years to do it and it’s going to be expensive and massively disruptive. I want to feel really excited about it! Anyway, I sent all the comments to the architect last night and we’ll see what he says.
We can afford to do the kitchen or the loft (plus a bit left over) but not both - we’d have to extend the mortgage to pay for half the loft. We’re weighing up whether it’s worth it, but think it probably is. It would give us a good sized bedroom for each child and a guest room for my mum, as she stays at least 2 nights pw. So much for paying the mortgage off early!