Enjoying the Christmas Lead In

This year I've been enjoying the final lead in to Christmas.  Not because we've had lots of parties or social gatherings planned, but because now most of our commitments have been met, and present shopping done, we can simply please ourselves in the lead up to Christmas day.

In fact, this Christmas hasn't actually felt particularly Christmassy as yet, and I'm not entirely disappointed by this.  Saturday, was a prime example, we just hung out at home in the morning and I checked out some minimalist blog posts by Joshua Becker on his new to me becomingminimalist.com blog.  We then nipped to ASDA to do a bit of grocery shopping to tide us over until we do our Christmas food shop on Tuesday night.  It was a rather annoying and stressful trip and I couldn't wait to get home.  I won't be going to a supermarket again on a weekend, for as long as I can possibly get away with it.

In the afternoon, I spent a pleasant afternoon reading the newspaper and listening to Tom Odell songs on YouTube, plus watching a few of the interviews on there, that he has done in the past couple of years.  I was reminded of his music whilst watching him perform on Chatty Man Alan Carr's show on Friday night, and remembered reading about him and listening to his music on a couple of blogs in the past year.  I was curious to check out a little more of his work and found myself really enjoying his music and hoping to find his latest CD Long Way Down in my Christmas stocking.  I don't often ask to be given CD's as gifts, but this one sounds exceptional and it would be good to be able to listen to it in the car.  Here's a video of one of my favourite tracks on his album.

Sunday was another lazy day spent at home pottering, after I'd been to the gym that is.  I managed to find a couple of hours to pop up to the sewing room and pack away some of the Christmas fabrics I've been selling over the last few months and start thinking about what I want to sell in the New Year.  I also did a smidgeon of mini hexagon patchworking and sewed a few little hexies together.  I love the effect of these small hexies when you put them together.  This project is going to be a long one I can tell, but I don't mind that because I think the end result will be lovely and I'll have used up lots of scraps into the bargain.

We haven't really got a lot planned for the next few days.  I have one last class to attend at the gym, a bit of house cleaning, ironing, washing, etc. to do and a few more donations to make for the Reverse Advent Challenge, whilst OH has some work to finish in the next couple of days. 

On Christmas Eve we're planning to take ourselves off into town for the day and take in the Christmas lights, shop window displays, the tree in Trafalgar Square,  the Christmas Market on the Softbank and just generally soak up the Christmas atmosphere without any pressure to seek out any last minute gifts.  We like to do these things when we stay in London for Christmas and haven't done them so far this year.  Maybe once we have, it will begin to feel a lot like Christmas.

We aren't expecting any visitors for Christmas this year, it's just going to be a quiet one, with just the three of us (plus doggy, of course), which suits us just fine, until we head out of London on Boxing day to visit family and friends.

I hope that all you guys enjoy a very merry and peace filled Christmas and find exactly what you want in your Christmas stocking.  I will still be reading over the Christmas period and publishing the odd pre-written post, but will probably not be creating any new posts while we're away, as internet connections can be a problem.  Thank you so much for taking the time to read my blog this year and leave comments.  I've really enjoyed your company here in the blogosphere.  If I don't get chance to post again before the New Year.  All the best for you and your nearest and dearest in 2015.