Christmas presents | Suzie Speaks

The new John Lewis #ManOnTheMoon advert has been released today, and the Christmas countdown has started…

I love Christmas. It’s the most wonderful time of the year, but unfortunately it is also usually the most expensive.

Last year, I left my shopping to the last minute, and consequently found myself rushing around in the middle of enormous crowds a few days before Christmas Eve in an effort to get everything done as quickly as possible. When I returned home, I realised that I had spent an enormous amount of money, with seemingly very little to show for it.

This year, I decided to do things differently, and at the beginning of November I realised that I had nearly completed my shopping for a fraction of what I spent previously. This is what I did:

1. I decided to go for quality rather than quantity. I’ve made the mistake in the past of frittering lots of money away on small novelty items (which I refer to as ‘padding’) just for the sake of buying them. Inevitably, I’ve found that these have been left in drawers, on shelves collecting dust for the next twelve months or re-gifted and were a total waste of money. This time, I decided that I would buy one or two things for each person that would be of use and/or have some sort of meaning. Continue reading →

I’m on a train up to Manchester to spend Christmas with my mum, sisters and brother-in-law. I got up early in an attempt to beat the thousands of people that are embarking on similar journeys today, and I appear to have made the right decision- my carriage is almost empty, very quiet and calm. The Bloke is going to his mum’s tomorrow and my friend is looking after the cats, so aside from braving the hoards of people that will undoubtedly be in a blind panic in Marks and Spencer’s later to purchase something for our Christmas dinner tomorrow I’m pretty much set for the next few days.

The Bloke and I had our own little Christmas together on Sunday. We awoke in the morning and exchanged gifts. As usual, he’d spoilt me rotten with thoughtful and amusing presents, including a DVD of Masters of the Universe. It was the first film I ever saw at the cinema, and I have been in love with Dolph Lundgren ever since. I made a passing comment a few weeks ago about the fact that I only own it in VHS and can’t find it on DVD anywhere, so he imported it from the States. Awesome. He also made me this:

I cried laughing – I had seen a similar image on a blog post a while ago and have been trawling the Internet for a t shirt, only to discover that he had made transfers and ironed it on. Genius. The only trouble is, I’m not sure where I could wear it without getting beaten up by die hard Nirvana fans…

We ate a beautiful dinner with all the trimmings, indulged in an epic amount of chocolate whilst watching Masters of the Universe and spent the rest of the day snuggled up with the cats (once they had finished kicking the crap out of their Christmas presents – catnip filled stuffed mice) and talking. It was nice. No, it was more than nice, it was perfect. We’ve been together for years and have only spent one Christmas together properly, so it’s great that we can create our own with our own little family.

I’m looking forward to a few days of fun, laughter and plenty of sleep with the family- after reconciling a number of issues recently it’s going to be the first one in years that we will all be able to enjoy each other’s company!

If I don’t get the opportunity to tell you so beforehand, have a lovely festive season, whether you celebrate Christmas or not!

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