We had a brilliant Christmas this year, the kids got everything they’d asked for and more, except for one present that never arrived because the order got messed up (Thanks Asda!), there were no arguments or tears or overtired temper tantrums – in fact, it was as close to a perfect Christmas as you could imagine.
We have a set routine at Christmas, we each have stockings that we hang on our bedroom doors for Santa to leave a satsuma, chocolate coins and a small pressie in and we always sit on our bed and open these before sending Mr Frugal downstairs to see if Santa’s been. Then we all follow him down and take it in turns to open our presents, although this year Mr Frugal and I only got a few things each as we spent most of our Christmas budget on the kids. Half way through opening our parcels, we go and have a cup of tea in the kitchen and then we come back to open the rest. We do it this way because it makes the present opening last longer and in the end, no matter what Christmas is about to you and your family, most kids will tell you that the best part of Christmas is the presents so we like to drag it out a little 😉
I got a fantastic present from my Secret Santa, Becky at Baby Budgeting – a Budget Book from Organised Mum and a copy of her book ‘How to enjoy time off with your baby’. Both of which are perfect for me as I love Organised Mum (I bought my Secret Santa gift from there as well lol) and her book has some brilliant tips for saving money. I would strongly recommend anyone with children to check out a copy of Becky’s book as it’s saved me money already and I’m only a couple of chapters in! Thank you very much Becky – both are fantastic.
After all the presents were opened, we had bacon sandwiches and got dressed. Then it was off to see Mr Frugal’s brother and his family followed by a visit to my dad for Christmas dinner. More presents all round and the kids even treated us to a Christmas carol service at my dad’s which was beautiful and I’m sure I saw a tear in my dad’s eye. We ate so much dinner that when we got home later, we couldn’t face the Christmas tea I had carefully planned and we ended up having Coke floats as the kids have a bit of a thing for them at the moment. Not very festive I know but fun all the same.
I’m dying to take my tree down now it’s all over though and I can’t wait to pack it away in the loft ready for next year. We’ve added some lovely new ornaments to our collection this year after I took part in a bloggers Ornament swap and was lucky enough to receive three of these beautiful hand made star ornaments from Maggy at RedTedArt. They look gorgeous and are perfect for my colour scheme. Thanks Maggy for the thought and time you put in to making me these – I really do love them.
So that’s Christmas over for another year, I hope you all got everything you wanted and were able to spend some lovely time with your family.
I’m sending big hugs and kisses to those of you who had a bit of a rough time for one reason or another, you know where I am if I can do anything to help x x x
(Sorry for the Dodgy fonts in this post – no idea what has happened but I can’t fix it ;-))
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Leslie http://www.livelovelaughwithleslie.com
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Very clever blog. I am curious to see the upcoming carnival post as I went to a small carnival in England years ago. I am following you back from my Channeling Ricky blog. Thanks for the follow! Sharon aka SKY
Hi I'm from FMBT. I'm your newest follower! I love your blog…my husband is "frugal"…or I like to call cheap 🙂 But I love the organized mum budget book! How neat. I just made my own little book for my 101 list http://blessingsbyblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/ocd-f… Have a great week.
http://blessingsbyblog.blogspot.com
Great site!! I am your newest follower via Monday blog hop. I would love if you could follow me back at http://frugalcouponingmommy3.blogspot.com/
Happy Holidays! I'm now a follower from the Monday Blog Hops.
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Are you hosting on blogger? it takes notions with fonts sometimes, the only way to fix it is to copy and paste into another 'new post'.
hehehe re the Christmas tree, I have ours in another room so i don't have to look at it because from today on I will be jumping from one foot to another to take the darn thing down. Delighted you had a lovely Christmas 🙂 Jen
Aaaah thank you for the mention! Lovely photo of the ornament!! And looks like you had a lovely Christmas!! Our tree is firmly staying up!!!! Don't want to get rid of it yet 🙁
Maggy
HI! Thanks for linking up at Making Friends Monday! I am already following your lovely blog. Have a great week! ~Heather http://www.livingonloveandcents.blogspot.com
Sounds like you had a fab xmas.
Great post. sounds like it went great for you. I agree; no matter what Christmas means, to the kids it's mainly about presents (unless you're deeply religious of course!) and that's the main excitement. So yes, spreading out the opening of the presents is a must!
CJ xx
Glad you had a good Christmas. I love the collage of all the pics you've done – very cute and very flash! I got given an Organised Mum Calendar this year, it's the Family Home Planner one, so I need to have 3 more kids now to fill in the extra columns as it's looking a little empty! x