Love Your Christmas Home 2014 Part 1

Well here we are in December Beach Cottage ladies, Christmas is coming, a coastal Christmas for me at that, how did it come around again so quickly?! I love Christmas, and since I had my own little family I’ve always loved making traditions and memories – one of the best things about it for me is, of course, the decorating, there is nothing quite like this time of year for having the excuse to mess around decorating for hours and hours and hours on end…

…over the years the Christmas decorating has evolved and changed and it took me a long time to get my head around decorating in Australia in Summer…I still miss a cold Christmas and all the decor that comes with that and I still find it a little odd to see fake snow in the shops and around and about when it’s knocking on the door of the mid thirties outside…there is nothing quite so good though as going out into a warm Summer Aussie clear deep blue night sky, in shorts and bare feet, warm air all about and looking up at the Christmas lights everywhere…

So if you haven’t started decorating yet (like me) it’s not too late, you don’t need to get all panicky, you can have a simple (but not perfect) Christmas home, that may not match up (quite) to the magazines but will be pretty and festive.

Last year we had a daily task for Love Your Christmas Home, this year I’m going to write (and post pics of what I am doing) in parts. This is Part One, where you spend a little bit of time going through mentally what you would like to do this year – this doesn’t have to take a lot of time, but I think it really helps to set up (just easily in your head) what you are going to do, how you are going to do it and when.

First thing is to get yourself some Christmas inspiration – I do this every year, it normally starts with the Christmas magazines where upon I load myself down with them and sit in the evenings musing and flicking…I have to say that this year, for the first year ever, I’ve been under-whelmed by most of them and Pinterest has seriously over-taken flicking in mags…I love the simplicity of Pinterest and I love how along with seriously wonderfully perfect images of Christmas you also get thrown in there real-girl pics of how people celebrate Christmas all over this beautiful planet of ours.

So get yourself a drink, take stock of what Christmas decs you already have (this is so not about over-spending on decs and homey things so use up what you’ve got) and think about where you are going this year with colours, themes and ideas…last year for me I went rustic coastal christmas – lots of herbs, branches, driftwood, shells and quite natural, this year I’m thinking similar but I’m also finding myself yearning for white lights and an absolute shed load of them…hello Mr Beach Cottage can you please, when you get home from work, make it possible to cover the whole of the roof of our home in white lights? Can you make them sparkle too? Gracias.

So get thinking, make this a nice little Christmas ritual for you, get a drink, put your feet up, sneak a chocolate bar down your trousers and think about loving your Christmas home, whether you live in your dream home or whether you are about as far away from that dream home as you thought you could be – you can have a pretty Christmas without the perfect home and the 2.4 children, ask me how I know….hmmm that would be a rental in our first house in Australia with the murky green walls and revolting cream tiling…

Yep so what does your festive, simple and most of all easy and calm Christmas look like this year? Let’s make it happen :)

Mostly though, apart from lights and themes and images of inspiration have a think about what you REALLY want, not what you think you might want, I think this was a huge eye opener for me, I thought I wanted this perfectly trimmed tree, to be foofed up on Christmas Day looking all done up and to have a wonderful from scratch dinner with all the trimmings, but after trying that version (which I have to say I did actually achieve and I did do very well at it even if I say it myself, but I will also say that once it was over I was completely and utterly exhausted by it all) I realised that the version I preferred included me actually enjoying Christmas and not ending up like I had in the past and like many women do and that is the mad woman running around trying to get everything done and everything done well when no-one else really gave anywhere near as a much of a stuff, no because they were all too busy having a good time…I realised the only one to make Christmas good for me…was me.

So think about it a bit more, what do you want to do this Christmas that will rock it? I haven’t got a new thing yet this year, in fact our plans aren’t concrete yet for what we are doing, but is there something you’ve always fancied but never made happen?

Remember though that even if your little dreamy thing doesn’t happen it’s not the end of the world – last year I had planned a special dinner in our home and invited people over and I was really quite looking forward to it, I had a lovely menu and had started cooking lots of traditional English things for it, lovely goodies I had home-made were in the freezer, the turkey was ordered and paid for and I had been out shopping and wrapped up lovely table gifts for each guest, I’d even bought something special for the table dressing…unfortunately it didn’t happen and I was very miffed to be quite frank…but it’s a good lesson (in many ways, not least in manners) in Christmas and how it’s not going to be perfect and doesn’t always go how you want…oh and no I won’t be doing that again this year, at least not with those guests :)

What do you want this Christmas, a beautiful table on the big day (start making it happen now), a gathering of friends when usually what happens is you just never get around to it (pick a date), a festive front door to welcome, the tree you’ve always dreamed of (you can do it)…or perhaps none of that at all, maybe you’ve done it all every year, you’ve been Super Christmas Woman for years and loved it but this one is the one where everything will be pared down, easy and simple?

Enjoy, breathe, calm…

Sarah x

You can read much more about a having a pretty not perfect Christmas with Love Your Christmas Home and finding inspiration over here Love Your Christmas Home Day 1

There’s more info here on Loving Your Christmas Home and my thoughts on how to have your home ready for Christmas over here Love Your Christmas Home Day 2

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