Violet’s First Christmas

They say that when you have children, Christmas becomes all about them, and I can safely confirm after our first Christmas together as a family that this is true, but it is also totally magical experience too. It’s like that childhood magic returns and you see it in their faces, I’m sure Violet is too small to understand fully, but she was so taken by the lights, the presents (of course) and even tried some Christmas foods too. I sat watching Christmas movies with Violet by the tree and had to pinch myself, I couldn’t believe I have my own little girl to celebrate with this year and as she grows older it will only get even more exciting too!

We have never really been much of a festive family, we’ve been away on holiday over Christmas a couple of years and for the last 3 years we haven’t had a tree, but with now Violet here we wanted to go all out with the Christmas traditions and I think we did pretty well!

So, our celebrations started on Christmas eve, which luckily fell over the weekend meaning V had a little bit more time off then she usually would. It was also Violet’s 10 month birthday, so we had to get this cute snap in her elf outfit with the Christmas Tree, of course! At 10 months old she’s SO close to walking, I think she’ll have mastered her first steps within a couple of weeks for sure. She stands unaided all the time, she just needs to take the plunge and put one foot forward, it’ll happen!

We had a lovely family day together and a bit of last minute Christmas shopping (as part of the One4All Giftcard challenge, where I was challenged to kit our house for Christmas – read about this here!). We picked up some fresh vegetables for our roast dinner and fresh ingredients like delicious puddings in Marks and Spencer. I managed to bag some last minute Christmas decorations for the tree which were 50% off already, great time to get everything. I used our One4All Giftcard for all of my Christmas shopping this year which has been SO handy they are totally flexible to use in different shops, meaning you can do all your shopping with one card. An ideal gift as well for someone if you don’t know which shop they would normally buy from.

In the evening, we attended the Family Crib Service at our local church. It was a refreshingly light-hearted service, where there were children and adults all dressed as parts from the nativity scene, it was like something from the Vicar of Dibley. I also enjoyed singing some carols and getting into the spirit of Christmas! Next year, we will be totally dressing up for the service, watch this space!

We got home just in time for Violet to open her Christmas Eve Box and lay down a carrot and mince pie for Father Christmas.

A few last minute decorations added to the tree in M&S thanks to my One4All Giftcard!

Christmas morning came after a rather disturbed nights sleep from Violet- maybe she was just too excited to see what Santa had brought her, or maybe she just didn’t want to give me the only thing on my Christmas list (a good nights sleep!) So, we felt rather jaded in the morning and after a very slow start, we eventually opened presents at midday (the perks of having a little one who doesn’t want to open everything first thing!). We started off with Robbie as let’s face it, he’s the only one of us that can sniff out which presents are for him – from a mile off! He had a stocking full of treats which included doggy friendly wrapping paper, which meant he could take his presents and rip them to his hearts content! That kept him busy whilst Violet got to work on the rest of the pile!

Of course, Violet was thoroughly spoiled – we just bought her a few little wooden toys and books as we didn’t want to go mad, but having a whole hoard of lovely aunties and uncles surrounding her, she was one lucky little girl with all the exciting things she got!  I’m not actually sure she knew what to do with all the presents as it was all a bit overwhelming so we did it in stages so she could actually enjoy and appreciate each gift and spend some time playing with it. She loved ripping open the wrapping paper and seeing what was inside, her face was a picture! By the end of the unwrapping session, you couldn’t see the floor for paper, ribbons, building blocks, toys and games.

It was clearly all a bit too much Violet then got extremely tired so we put her down for a nap, whilst the Christmas lunch cooked away in the oven. As we are vegetarian, we had a Quorn Roast and all the normal roast veg and trimmings, mince pies and Christmas pudding! The only thing we missed out this year was Brandy Butter, a favourite of mine. Doh! Also, following our tradition – Robbie had a full roast dinner for his lunch too. 

It was then time for the Queen’s Speech, so we all sat together on the sofa by the open fire (including Robbie) to tune in. We waded through snacks galore (isn’t that what Christmas Day is about!?)  – a good old fashioned tin of Quality Streets (Strawberry and Orange Creams for the win!), M&S honey cashew nuts and Fairfield Farm Heat & Eat Crisps (warm crisps with dips!) were some of the definite favourite snacks this year! We also had a gorgeous M&S Salted Caramel Pudding, which although it didn’t look exactly like it did on the box, it was so delicious, with a centre of swirls of sparkling salted caramel sauce inside a molten chocolate cake. SO GOOD! 

Our first family Christmas was relatively low-key, relaxed and a quiet day but it was just perfect for us. Violet was so excited by all the new toys, the lights, the movies on the TV and most importantly, spending time together as a family. I enjoyed just having a day to relax on the sofa, eating WAY to much and I even managed to squeeze in an hour of gaming time as I got the new Pokemon Ultra Sun game for the Nintendo DS – I haven’t played a computer game since way before Violet arrived so this was a lovely break and I realised how much I missed escaping into the world of games, just for a short while! I hope to make a little bit more time for it in 2018 as a way to relax, but we shall see if that pans out! 

Boxing Day was a restful day, time to play with Violet’s new toys! We had lunch with some friends in the village which was lovely. They just got a new black kitten, which was so cute.

And just like that Christmas was over. Life went back to normal on 27th, although I clung onto as much festive spirit as possible, keeping the tree up and eating our way through the endless Christmas food (we still have some now!) until a couple of days later when Christmas ended with a large crash and a bang…..

At 6:30am when I was at home on my own, Violet decided to ‘drive’ her car into the side of the tree, causing the entire thing to fall over. That certainly woke me up! She then stood back and casually waved the bauble she snagged on the way at me as I tried to heave it off the floor, the decorations falling off, the lights tangled in the dangling tinsel – basically a giant mess. I tried to put it all back into place but it just didn’t look the same and feeling paranoid Violet would pull it down again, the tree had to go. We packed it up and took the rest of the decorations down. Until next year, tree!

Our NYE was a very relaxed affair, we only just made it to midnight and watched the fireworks on the iPad in bed, before promptly falling asleep as soon as they were over – rock and roll!

So, that’s Violet’s first Christmas in a nutshell, it was a quiet, sweet and magical first Christmas as a family together, just right. I’m looking forward to next year as I’m sure she’ll have more of an idea of what is going on and it’ll be just chaos I’m sure! 🙂 Hope you had a good one too!

 

 

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