Our Festive Season 2024

We had a lovely Christmas this year.  We didn't need to go anywhere or have to do anything. We just stayed home, ate, drank, watched TV and just generally enjoyed one anothers' company. Perfect in my opinion. We enjoyed opening our presents. OH had bought most of his and I mine, so we got exactly what we wanted. LB seemed to like hers, most of which were from her list. 

We watched Die Hard on Xmas Eve, my first ever time watching it, Gavin and Stacy on Xmas night, which we really enjoyed and Outnumbered on Boxing Day night which was also good. In between, LB and I watched the Devil Wears Prada. I've watched it before several times, but it was still good.

OH cooked Xmas dinner for a change this year, so I had a break from that responsibility, which was nice. The day after Boxing Day, OH headed up north to see his mum. I decided not to go as I wanted to spend as much time with LB as possible whilst she was home and she was working that day, so couldn't go.

I started watching The Empress on Netflix whilst OH was away. It's the story of Empress Elisabeth, wife of Emperor Franz Joseph of the Habsburg dynasty in the Austrian/Hungarian Empire, set in the mid 1800's. It's subtitled, but very good. I binge watched three episodes in one night. I then googled the Emperor to find out more about the history of this era, which was interesting.

Anyway, LB had a day off on the Saturday between Xmas and New Year, as did I, so we both headed out for the afternoon/evening to a local independent cinema to watch Spirited Away, a Japanese anime film. She'd seen it a number of times before, but it was my first time watching it. It was nice to have some time out and about together, first chance of the holidays. We dropped into a couple of thrift shops before the cinema, which was fun. I know I'm supposed to be curbing my spending, but I did buy a couple of things in one shop. One was an organic cotton blouse for my holiday in Tenerife and the other a colourful pillow case that I'm going to use for gift wrapping large presents. (LB's birthday is coming up very soon, so this will come in useful)

We then went to a Turkish restaurant for supper. By this time, it was time to go to the cinema, so we headed there and enjoyed the film. It was unusual, but entertaining. Later, we caught the bus home and OH was home from Yorkshire when we got there. He'd had a nightmare two days travelling there and back due to heavy traffic. Bless him.

On Sunday, I was due at work for 12 noon. I had a bit of a lie in before breakfast, then went to get ready for work. Work itself was very busy. I didn't stop from the minute I clocked on till the minute I clocked off. It was good for business though and it helped the time pass quickly, so I can't complain, but I wasn't expecting it to be so busy.

On Monday, LB and I had our last chance to have a day out shopping out of town, before she goes back to Uni. She's working for the remaider of the holidays, so there wasn't another time we could do it. I also needed to do the weekly shop, although we didn't need a whole lot, as we've got a cupboard full of food we can eat. OH's mum sent him home with a couple of hampers of food items that she'd packed up for us. We mainly just needed fresh things.

We didn't actually set off until lunch time. It was very busy everywhere we went. We started off at Home Bargains, where I needed to buy some toiletries and household items. I bought a few food items here too. I didn't spend as much as I normally do, just £24 or thereabouts this time.

Next, we headed to Tesco, where I bought more food items and more toiletries, followed by a look around TK Maxx where I purchased a few Xmas things for next year which were on sale. These included a couple of fabric sacks for gift wrapping and some brightly coloured cord for the same purpose. I'm trying to build up a stock of reusable wrapping items, which I'm going to add to by making some of my own this year.

We also paid a visit to my favourite large charity shop, where I tried on a number of things. I was looking for very lightweight items to take on holiday next month. I found a couple of things I liked, which included a skirt and a dress. This will probably be my last thrift shop this year and I'm hoping to severely curtail my thrifting next year. I might give myself a £25 per month thrifting budget and try to stick to that. It will definitely be a challenge though. I will need to be uber selective what I buy, which is fine as I have been fine tuning my choices lately.

I then went to Lidl for the majority of the groceries, as I had a 10% off my shop voucher to use, which saved me nearly £7.

Later, after supper, I decided to trawl through my finances for the month. It wasn't a pretty sight. I'm so ready for a new financial start in January. My payslip was live too, so I downloaded it and was happy to have been paid more than I expected after a very basic month at work. Next month will be a lot less I think, as I will have done very little in terms of extra hours outside my contracted hours, so February may be a month where I need to be very careful with my spending. Luckily, it's the shortest month of the year.

On New Years Eve, I went to my usual class at the gym. I was in desperate need of doing some exercise by this point in the holiday. The class was good.

In the afternoon, OH and I spent a few hours heavily pruning the cherry tree in the garden. It hadn't been tackled for a number of years and had got way out of hand with way too much growth.  We were very ruthless with it I'm afraid. I'm hoping it will recover in time and that we can keep it under control in the future.  It was a weight off my mind to get it done, as it's been on my to do list for the whole of the year. Here's a before:

and after:

It was a brutal chop, and we'll miss the cherries this year. I felt really guilty for it, but it had to be done, as it was growing very high and also growing over the fence into our neighbours garden. Living in London, in such close proximity to others and with such a small garden, it's not really a good thing to let trees grow too big, as they can cause disputes and problems. Our neighbours were away, so we could do it whilst they weren't around. They'll get a shock when they get back, but they may be happy that we've done it. I'm going to use many of the pruned branches to keep the local cats off our beds, as they are still a popular place for them to do their 'business'. Hopefully, making it a less comfortable place to do this will deter them.

On New Year's Eve we all went out for supper to a local restaurant. LB was heading out afterwards to spend the evening with friends at a local pub, so we dropped her off after we'd eaten and then we came home and had chilled for rest of the evening. It was the first year that we didn't have to stay home to console our dog, who was terrified of the fireworks. We miss her terribly though and would have her back with us in an instant.

New Years Day didn't get off to the start I expected. Firstly, I wasn't too well all night due to the meal at the restaurant, which was meat that I suspect was defrosted and then cooked in a microwave. My upset stomach kept me awake most of the night. 

LB got in very late, but safely and then on New Years Day we found out that she'd not had an altogether great night. Her card holder was stolen from her handbag in the pub just before midnight. The perpetrator then used one of her bank cards at a corner shop. Luckily, she didn't have much money in her account, as she transfers it to other places, so they couldn't steal anymore from it, and she did get it refunded by her bank. But sadly, all her Xmas gift cash from relatives was stolen (£90), her provisional driving license, which she uses for ID, other cards that are difficult to replace and her Vivienne Westward card wallet, which I'd bought her for her 18th birthday.  I'm really disappointed for her. It's a cruel lesson when it happens to you, but it's not going to spoil our day or our year. 

I hope you had a good start to the New Year.