Happy Holidays Everyone! Can you believe how close Christmas is?! I hope your Christmas shopping is going well and that you've nearly bought all your presents. I think I've got all my presents done and dusted - all that's left to do it wrap them and then relax! If you've been around for a while now, you will know that every year I do the same Christmas tag, so this year I decided to put together a whole new tag - The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year Tag - to share all the Christmas-y goodness over the course of 25 questions. 1. When do you put the Christmas tree up? As much as I always want to put the tree up in mid-November, it will usually go up during the first week of December - the closer to the beginning of the month the better. With the tree usually coming down around the first week of January, I always want to get the most out of the decorations without them being up super early! 2. Candy cane or gingerbread men? Gingerbread men all the way! As much as I love the aesthetic of candy canes and generally love the taste of peppermint, but I've never been able to get into having candy canes as a festive snack. Gingerbread men, on the other hand, is a Christmas MUST! Like the look of this chocolate gingerbread? Come back for my next blog post to see how I made them... 3. Do you use advent calendars? YES! No matter how old you are, you can't not have an advent calendar for December. Without fail I will have a chocolate advent calendar each and every year 4. Do you buy presents or try DIYs? I do prefer to buy gifts over DIY-ing them. Although in saying that, I have done a few DIY gifts over the years, mainly focusing on fun little gifts to give everyone in my family than on big DIY for one person. I'll make things like jars of lemon butter, boxes of gingerbread or chocolate, or what I'm doing this year, little gift boxes made from old Christmas cards and filled with Quality Street chocolate. 5. Have you ever made a snowman? Nope! It's Summer here in Australia and I've only been to the snow once, so have never made a snowman. 6. Photos with Santa Claus, yay or nay? (share a favourite) I have NEVER had a photo with Santa Claus. I was a super shy kid that didn't even like taking professional family photos, so getting me to sit on Santa's lap for a photo? Yeah, that wasn't going to happen... While I'm a little bummed that that I don't have a photo, I'd prefer to have no photo than a cringe photos where I look like I'm about to cry or something. 7. What's your favourite Christmas memory? I don't have a specific Christmas memory, but in general I LOVED having Christmas at my Nan & Pop's house with my cousins when we were kids. Christmas with my cousins was always the best and we'd have wrapping paper strewn all over the place before going off to play with all our present, swim in the pool or riding out bikes for the afternoon. And I am super fortunate that my Nan & Pop recorded lots of home videos so I get to relive all those Christmas memories whenever I want... 8. Do you like to stay in your PJs or dress up for Christmas? I definitely dress up for Christmas! When doing presents with my parents in the morning, Opening presents in the morning with my parents is usually pretty casual in our PJs or casual clothes (I have an awesome Home Alone t-shirt I usually wear), but then it's dressing up for Christmas with the family. It's never overly fancy dress, and I'll be honest when I say I'm usually the only one with a full face of makeup and nice summer dress. If you can't dress up, wear bright makeup and a red lip on Christmas, when can you! 9. Talk us through your typical Christmas Day. If I'm spending Christmas Day with my extended family, which I'm doing this year, Christmas morning sees me opening presents with my parents before getting ready to head off to my aunt's house for lunch (although this year it's my cousin's house). We usually do a cold meat and salad lunch and dessert, which we all contribute to (my mum and I are usually on dessert duty). The afternoon is pretty chilled with everyone catching up and relaxing under the air conditioner. We do presents, which is Secret Santa, and have a scrumptious afternoon tea. Most of us will also stick around for dinner, which is lunch leftovers, before we all head off home. It's a very chilled day but I wouldn't have it any other way. 10. Favourite Christmas Film? When it comes to classic Christmas films, Home Alone 1 & 2 are hands-down my favourite! They're some of the only Christmas films that I'll watch anytime of the year and I always make time for them in my annual Christmas binge-list. In terms of newer films and more on the cheesy romance side, I can't go past The Spirit Of Christmas. I'm a sucker for cheesy romance films and I just adore this one. 11. Are you a last minute shopper or are you organised? I'm somewhat organised. Because I do a lot of online shopping, I can't really risk being a last-minute shopper if I want everything to arrive on time. As of this post going live, I'm pretty sure I've finished all my shopping, which is a good feeling! 12. Somewhere you'd really love to spend Christmas at least once? I'd love to have a Christmas in the UK and New York at some point. They seem like super festive places to be for the holidays, plus they'd make a great change from my Summer Christmas! 13. What are you present wrapping skills like? You know, they're not that bad. I'm pretty darn good with nice square gifts, but give me something that's an odd shape or has multiple pieces? Yeah, not the greatest. I'm definitely getting better as the years go on, but I'm also not terrible. 14. Favourite Christmas Carol? When it comes to classic carols, I LOVE Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree by Brenda Lee. This is the version of the song that features in Home Alone and it's just so fun and festive. In terms of new releases, I adore Extraordinary Merry Christmas by Darren Criss and Lea Michele for the second Christmas episode of Glee. There are SO many great Christmas Carols though, so check out my 2020 playlist for everything I'm listening to this month. 15. What does Christmas dinner usually look like for you? As I said, Christmas lunch/dinner is, more often than not, cold meat and salad - it is Summer after all, so the more we can limit hot food and the need to heat things up the better! Cold meat is turkey and ham, and maybe sometimes chicken, and salads can vary from potato salad and coleslaw to pasta and rice salads - since we all contribute something for the meal, it all depends what we feel like making every year. If Christmas Day is just a chilled day with my parents, we tend to go for a hot lunch with ham, turkey and roast veggies. 16. What do you leave out for Santa and the Reindeer? These days, I don't leave anything out for Santa and the Reindeer, but back in the day I would leave a glass of milk or cordial and some biscuits for Santa and a carrot for the Reindeer. 17. When did you learn the truth about Santa Claus? I don't really remember when I learned the truth about Santa, but I do know that my parents never sat me down and said the Santa wasn't real. One year he just didn't come and I never asked why and my mum never said why - it was just mutually understood that he didn't exist so we didn't need to discuss it. 18. Have you ever peeked at your gifts? As a kid, I 100% sneaked a peek at my presents! It was pretty easy to uncover my mum's hiding place (and to be fair, I found one hiding place accidentally), so I would always have a little peek when I could. Nowadays, I don't sneak a peek (I'm an adult, I can have some self-control), but that's also in part because I'm usually picking something out and saying "hey mum, give this to me for Christmas". 19. Christmas tree: real or fake? Fake tree! Real Christmas trees aren't really that big here in Australia, and it seems that plantations are located nearer to the cities - I don't even know where I could buy a real tree somewhat locally. I do definitely want a real tree at least once in my life, but there's so much convenience with a fake tree. 20. Do you prefer giving or receiving gifts on Christmas? I mean, we all love receiving gifts. You can't really deny that. But I do really enjoy giving gifts, especially if it's something that I'm super excited to give and see their reaction. 21. Your favourite Christmas tradition? My favourite Christmas tradition is definitely sitting down to watch Carols by Candlelight on the tellie on Christmas Eve with my mum. We've done this for as long as I can remember, and as I've gotten older, we've started going all out with a little cheese platter and drinks, making a real occasion of it. We'll have all the lights off, except the Christmas tree, and just enjoy the magic of Carols by Candlelight. 22. Have you ever built a gingerbread house? Once. I always make gingerbread in some shape for Christmas, so back in 2015 I went all out and made a gingerbead house. It was certainly an experience, and as you can see from the photos, it wasn't that structurally sound and I needed toothpicks to hold it all together. Maybe one day I'll tackle a house again, but not anytime soon... 23. When do you start getting excited about Christmas? This year, I was keen for Christmas before Halloween - 2020 has just been like that I guess. But usually, it's about mid-November when I start getting excited. the fact that I'm creating holiday content for my blog and socials, which I start early, means I'm keen for Christmas pretty far out from the big day. 24. What's your favourite thing about Christmas? I don't really have one favourite thing because I just love the atmosphere of Christmas, which is the combination of everything that happens during the festive season. 25. Do you make New Year's resolutions, and if so, do you stick to them? Yes and No. I kind of make basic resolutions and goals for the year, but I don't sit down and write out a list of major life changes or resolutions I want to accomplish in the New Year. I'm of the belief that if you want to make a change, do it now rather than waiting for the new year to come around again. I hope you all enjoyed getting a little insight into what Christmas is like for me! I'd love to know your answers to any or all of these questions, so feel free to answer some in the comments, or let me know if you do this tag on your blog, YouTube channel, or wherever. Happy Holiday Prepping! Victoria :) You May Also Be Interested In:
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