Can I Take My Tree Down Now….

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 ;-))