This is how I’m doing Christmas

What gives you that Christmas feeling? Putting up a Christmas tree, decorating your home, burning candles, eating mandarins, baking gingerbread men? That normally does it for me but this December has been an odd one. I spent almost half of it on my own (husband was in Bahrain for work), so I did very little that got me into the festive spirit. I did however get rid of our old Christmas tree that we kept in the living room for some unknown reason since last year and replaced it with holly on mantelpiece. And I did get myself a chocolate advent calendar.

One Sunday when I helped my friends put up their tree and decorate it, I wanted them to adopt me. Thankfully, Marc came home two days later and I no longer felt lonely :). Loneliness around Christmas saddens me. When on one evening out with colleagues I somehow stupidly agreed to do a charity dance-off at our Christmas party I knew immediately which one I was going to support – Crisis at Christmas – a national charity for single homeless people. I won the dance-off. I could clearly dance better but I didn’t get on the floor for some caterpillar moves, which made my opponent crack few of his ribs (!). We raised a decent amount that could potentially reserve up to eight places for homeless people, giving them:

• Welcoming support from people who really care
• Three nutritious hot meals including Christmas dinner
• The chance to shower and change clothes, have a haircut and get a health check
• Expert advice on life-changing issues like housing and employment
• An introduction to Crisis year-round services for training and support for the future

I didn’t buy any silly useless presents either. I saved a few items from My Little Box every month and was able to put together decent gift bags for every female member of my family. For the men I did have to do some online shopping. In addition, I’ve been making my own lip balms, packaged them beautifully in little organza bags and quite a few friends have received these as their presents as well. And as ever, our traditional cheesy personalised Christmas cards will reach some people’s post boxes or inboxes.

Homemade. Made from heart. It’s the thought that counts.

Happy Christmas to you all! Look after each other.