Tag: presents
I have been nominated by the lovely Ritu of But I Smile Anyway to take part in The Christmas Tag. I have been getting into the Christmas spirit lately so am thrilled to have a go. Thanks Ritu! 🙂
- Thank the person that nominated you with a link to their blog
- Add the picture in your blog
- Copy these rules into your post
- Add a link to this original post (littlediyprojects.wordpress.com/thechristmastag)
- Answer the 10 questions (you can add e:-)xtra Christmas-related questions if you want)
- Tag at least 3 other bloggers with links to their blogs
- Have fun!
The Questions:
1. What’s your favourite thing about Christmas?
2. What’s your favourite Christmas memory?
3. Are there special traditions your family has for Christmas?
4. What’s your Christmas wish? (Can be personal or general)
5. What’s your favourite Christmas dish?
6. What’s your favourite Christmas decoration?
7. What’s your favourite Christmas song?
8. Where do you usually celebrate Christmas?
9. What does the ‘Christmas Spirit’ mean to you?
10. Who out of anybody in the world would you want to spend your Christmas with?
The Answers
-
- I love the Christmas music, not just the old classics that get trotted out every year like Slade and Wizzard (although they always make me smile), but I love a Christmas carol too, and despite not being overly religious I love the Christingle service that the church does for little children, it is beautiful.
- My favourite Christmas memory is being with the family playing charades, laughing at the rude ones and also at my Mum always shouting out the answers to the wrong team!
- We did have special traditions when we were kids. As well as opening our main Christmas presents in the morning, we would all buy each other little presents, often joke or useful ones that we would call ‘tree presents’ which we would dish out when we all got together Christmas teatime. There was always a lot of hilarity as we squashed into the front room opening things like posing pouches, a ‘jewel’ encrusted dustpan and brush, and of course the inevitable pair of underpants that my Mum had wrapped up for one of the boys that went to me or my sisters or knickers that went to one of my brothers!
- My Christmas wish for everyone is, of course, peace and tolerance for one another.
- My favourite Christmas dish is, pigs in blankets, and turkey, oh and gammon, or perhaps the cold meat, mash and pickles we have on Boxing day!
- I have a few baubles that my daughter made at nursery that go on the tree every year, and I love sparkly lights too, in fact, our hallway with its ice blue lights look very pretty. I will post a pic at the end.
- Well, my favourite Christmas carol is ‘Away in a Manger’ especially when sung by children, and my favourite song is Boney M’s ‘ Mary’s Boy Child (Oh, My Lord).
- This year we will be spending it at home, although in the past it has been with my sisters or mum.
- The ‘Christmas spirit’ to me means showing warmth and compassion to people, and being aware that not everyone enjoys this time of year for one reason or another.
- I am happy spending Christmas with family.
Here are my nominees, that I would love to join in, however, I appreciate that you are all busy and might not have chance to participate, so no pressure!
Before the last pumpkin has rotted away and the fireworks fizzled out, the Christmas adverts have started on the TV! Now I love Christmas, but it is just a bit early to start the annual panic. I thought that you might enjoy this poem I wrote a while ago, about the guilt I felt for not being organised.
There’s only 7 weeks until Christmas
And I’ve not even started to shop
No presents, no food, and no booze yet
I don’t even have any pop!
The town is all lit up and sparkling
Santa’s grotto has also arrived
The shops are blaring out music
The old Christmas favourites revived!
All the heart-warming adverts on TV
They are sure to bring a tear to the eye
But my festive spirit is lacking
And I’ve not even made a mince pie!
I really need to get started
There are so many things still to get
I will make more of an effort
But it’s still not  December yet!
It has been nearly 4 months now since I have managed to stop smoking, which is all well and good, but I am STILL waiting for some of the benefits to kick in!
I am not the most patient of people, I have to say, and I do not like having to wait long for things. If I am on a diet (which I am , constantly) then I expect to have lost a load of weight by the end of the first week! I will jump on the scales every morning and if I have not lost at least 2lb, then I am not happy! After all, if I am to be constantly hungry and as a consequence, grumpy, then I expect the scales to reflect the sacrifices I have made.
Last Christmas I treated myself to a very expensive mascara. Now, I don’t even wear makeup every day, but when I do, I like to look nice. This mascara was supposed to make me look like I was wearing false lashes. It didn’t. It just looked like I had got heavy handed with the wand and put too much on, giving that thick spider’s legs effect!
I have tried foundations that promise to knock years off your age and give you  a smooth flawless skin or some such outlandish claim (to be fair though, they need a decent face to work with). I couldn’t wait to try it, but it just sank into the wrinkles and crevices in my skin, making me look ridiculous.
I am pretty rubbish at Christmas and birthdays as well. If I see a present wrapped up that is for me, I will poke it, prod it, and shake it, trying to guess what it is as I can’t wait to find out! I have actually improved over the years, as IÂ now no longer undo a bit of the tape carefully, and look inside the package, and then have to feign surprise on the actual day!
That is the trouble with me. I go about things in a gung-ho fashion, and expect to see instant results! I had patches to help me with the nicotine withdrawal and I did manage to cut those out completely within three weeks. However because I was desperate to cut those patches out so quickly, and rid myself of the nicotine sooner. IÂ nearly sabotaged my success by rushing things.
So although I am still waiting for my sense of smell and taste to return, I will try to be patient, or risk setting myself up for disappointment!
As Christmas Day approaches, we are doing our best at work to try to get as many patients home as possible. After all, nobody want to send Christmas in hospital if they can help it…..
Sadly some of the elderly patients we have in our ward at the moment will probably have a better time in hospital than if they were at home. After all, in hospital they have got people around them that they can talk to any time of the day or night,  Even if they don’t feel like talking, there is the security of knowing that somebody is there, looking out for them.
Last year I worked on Christmas Day, and it was quite a moving experience. All of the patients were given a present of some toiletries which were all nicely wrapped. Unfortunately many of them come into hospital without  any at all, and have no visitors to bring them in either. Although we do have some basic bars of soap and toothpaste etc, the ones they get as presents are much nicer.
The ones that could eat it were given a full English breakfast, and once we had got them looking and smelling lovely with their new toiletries the Ward Sister gathered all of the staff together so that we could go around each Bay and side room to sing Christmas Carols for them all. To me, this was the most moving thing of all. Many of our patients knew the words and sang along with us, as did some of the relatives that were there.
Many of them were crying, probably remembering Christmases past when they were celebrating with their own families One of our young Spanish Nurses was crying as this was the first Christmas she had spent away from her family, and I think by the end of it nearly all of us were crying! It was a very humbling experience.
After this the hot drinks trolley came around with a mince pie for whoever wanted one, and of course they were given a traditional Christmas dinner with all the trimmings plus Christmas pud for afters. We also pulled Christmas crackers with them, read out the corny jokes and gave them their little paper hats to wear!  As the Ward is mainly for elderly patients, many of them didn’t eat much, or weren’t able to pull their own crackers, but just the fact that they did not miss out on a traditional Christmas  just because they were in hospital meant a lot to them. In fact  for some of them, had they been at home it would have been just another lonely day
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