Five steps to festive & a foodie collaboration

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Although I’m not a fan of the cold weather, I LOVE this time of year because Christmas is my absolute favourite time of year EVER. I just love everything about it; the food, parties, decorations, music and just the general positive Christmas spirit! As soon as Halloween and Bonfire night are over, my mind is pretty much fixated on Christmas and I cannot wait to get the decorations up! This year I decided to incorporate this into my blog by creating a post/recipe for every day of December in the run up to Christmas and for today’s post I wanted to talk about some of my favourite ways for kicking off the holiday season and getting into the festive spirit! I must admit, I do sometimes suffer from SAD during the winter months and find the cold, dark evenings leave me feeling a little down.. but these simple things really help to make me feel a lot more uplifted and in that Christmassy mood! 

Create a Christmas Playlist:

This is such a simple step and something that you can do in a spare 5 minutes. I love to put together a playlist on Spotify of my favourite Christmassy songs to play in the morning when I’m getting ready or whilst I work. I absolutely love listing to music whilst I’m working, cooking, walking, training.. or just doing pretty much anything really. I find it can have an amazing impact on your mood and is such a great way to help me feel more positive and motivated. Lots of Christmas songs are also really jolly and cheerful, which always creates such a lovely cheery vibe! Oh.. and watching Christmassy films kinda’ ties in with this one too! Off the top of my head my go too’s would probably be: The Grinch, A Christmas Carol, ELF and The Holiday. But there’s loads more that I would also like to get through this month.. I might even do a blog post on my top pics! 

Decorations: 

Even if you’re on a budget and don’t want to spend lots of money on Christmas decorations, ther are so many places where you can purchase really affordable festive decor to make your home that little bit more festive! For me, the home environment is so important and I think this can have have a huge impact on your mood and productivity levels also. If i’m in a neat and organised space, I find that this helps me to feel far more relaxed and motivated to get things done. Similarly, being surrounded by pretty Christmas decorations, tinsel and lights really gets me into the festive mood and creates a really cosy, homey atmosphere that I just love! 

Friends & family:

What better way to enjoy the festive time of year than to spend it with your friends and family? There are so many amazing events on during this time of year and things to see and do, so it’s a great time to arrange to see friends and family and share the experience with them! One of my favourite things to do at this time of year is ice skating! I love ice skating anyway, but there are some really beautiful places that you can visit around London like The Natural History Museum or Summerset House. 

Festive Baking:

So, onto probably my favourite point of all here.. THE FOOD! Obviously I love to bake and cook, seeing as that’s pretty much what I do every day of my life and what this blog is based around. But festive baking is my absolute favourite and always leaves me feeling so happy and Christmassy! Christmas really is the time for indulging in lots of delicious treats and there are so many incredible things to make! Festive baking also fills the house with the most incredible smells and just makes everywhere smell like a giant gingerbread house! I’ve actually collaborated with one of my favourite superfood brands this year: Rainforest Foods to come up with 4 delicious Christmas recipes that you can all make for yourselves! If you head over to their website, they’ll be posting one of the recipes every week, so make sure you check that out.. they’re really really yummy and make great Christmas Party nibbles! 

Make a plan: 

There’s literally so many things that I love to do at Christmas.. along with work and everything else that I have going on, it can sometimes be a struggle to try and fit everything in. I find a really nice way to try and be a little more organised and also get really excited about all of the upcoming festivities is to make a list of all of the different things that I’d like to do/ see this year. This could be events, seeing friends, buying gifts, shows… anything that you like to do at Christmas! Writing it down and making plan might just help you to organise your time more efficiently and make sure that you’re setting yourself aside some free time to really embrace and enjoy this Christmas period! It’s so important to really focus on the present time and make the most of everything around you as it happens because you will only get this Christmas once! 

I hope that you’ve enjoyed this slightly different post today. It’s not my typical style of blog post, but was just something that I felt particularly inspired to write about and I guess I was just feeling in a particularly festive mood today. I hope you’re all having a wonderful day and enjoying this incredible time of year! 

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