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Must Haves For Christmas in the Hazelden Household

With only four more Fridays after this until Christmas I thought I'd share with you what my girls and I are considering must haves for Christmas. The toys they already have and are recommending to you and the ones that are on their lists in the hopes that Santa might be kind enough to pop them down our chimney.

So lets start off small. Think stocking fillers.

Here's one for the adults. I'm thinking retro with TOP TRUMPS, a classic game that I used to love playing as a child and it is definitely making a come-back. A great card game to play on Christmas afternoon as dinner settles.

And for the kids how about Hatchimals colleggtibles. The new Hatchimals surprise can be way out of budget for some people but the colleggtibles make a more affordable alternative.

Just Where to Hide Those Presents

Hiding the Chrismas presents becomes a bigger problem year on year. With each child that has come along the present piles have increased. I used to pile them all up in the corner of my room under a blanket but as you can see from the picture below, I've not done a great job at covering them this year.

There are so many presents this year that I have had to place them all around the house because there is a distinct lack of storage, something that I will have to make up for in the new year. And my children have become nosier as they have got older!!

So if I'm honest this year I haven't really hidden the presents. I've wrapped each gift up as I've bought it so that no one knows what is inside and then when the kids have happened to find them in lets say my bathroom…

they have then been told that I am helping store presents for Santa Claus because he just doesn't have enough room these days, there are just so many people on that nice list!!

Although I have managed to keep a couple of presents under wraps, thank god Daddy Hazelden doesn't have a full wardrobe like mummy.

So come one, where do you hide all your Christmas presents?? I promise I won't tell.

xxxx

“This post is an entry into the Hudl Christmas cheer competition”

My Traditional Christmas

The Christmas season brings with it lots of festive traditions but I don't think there is such a thing as a traditional Christmas anymore.

There used to be the 12 days of Christmas and if I am honest, I am not even sure when that is supposed to start. A traditional Christmas dinner is Turkey but I've heard people having things like salmon instead.

People nowadays take parts of some traditions and mix it up with some of their own and we are no different in the Hazelden household, so I thought I would share with you a little bit of what a traditional Christmas is like in our home.

1. Start watching Christmas films on the 1st of November.

You probably all think I'm mad but I love a good festive film and seen as I buy atleast one new one every year, we have alot to watch and you can't watch them just once you know!!

2. Decorations go up on the 1st of December.

I like to make the most of having our decorations up, 12 days to me just isn't long enough and I think having the Christmas tree, the paper chains, the tinsel etc up makes the place feel more cosy.

3. Change my ringtone to something festive

Every year on the 1st December I pick a new Christmas ringtone, this year I have Elton John's Step into Christmas. Cheers me up everytime my phone rings :)

4. When wrapping presents Christmas music must be played and a little mulled wine helps too.

If you are like me, you probably find the idea of wrapping a mound of presents a rather daunting task. I admit I am awful at doing it, you would definitely be able to pick put which present was from me and no it isn't because I'm a tad tipsy from a glass or three of wine whilst attempting to wrap ;)

5. One sweet can be eaten Christmas eve.

I always see alot of people saying that they have bought the sweets for Christmas only to go and eat them all and need to buy more before Christmas has even arrived. In our house the sweets get bought and hidden and do not under any circumstances get opened until Christmas eve, of course after that they don't last very long at all.

6. Read the Night Before Christmas to the children at bed time on Christmas eve.

Now this is a tradition I have carried on from when I was a little girl, my daddy always used to read it to me and it is something that I have carried on with my own children, thanks to my dad buying me my own copy when I moved out. My little brother can recite the whole book without even looking at it!!

7. Open stockings on the bed before we go downstairs Christmas morning.

When I was younger we didn't have stockings, we got one present at the end of our beds, I always felt like I was missing out somehow so even before my eldest daughter was born, I had bought her a stocking ready. The trouble is I always seem to buy too many stocking fillers as the stockings are normally overflowing with gifts.

8. Presents are left on the Christmas tree to open Boxing day.

We have what are cleverly called Christmas tree presents, see what I did there! There is one present for each member of the family that is placed on the tree and left there til boxing day, just makes the fesitivities last a bit longer.

So what is a traditional Christmas like in your house?

xxxx

Christmas Gifts

Ok you can't deny it any longer, Christmas is coming, so it might be an idea to start the present shopping.

This is something that I almost dread every year because the cost of buying Christmas Gifts is always on the rise and the list of people that I need to buy for is forever increasing!!

So this year I was trying to think of items that I could maybe make myself, this way I could maybe make it less expensive and lets be honest, the personal touch is always better, well in my opinion it is.

For alot of people I tend to buy some sort of sweet or chocolate, normally a variety of selection box, so I thought why not make my own sweetie jars.

I managed to find a bargain on Ebay, 25 sweetie jars for just £17.

I then got myself down poundland and spent £8 on an assortment of different sweets, including the all important flying saucers and sherbert sticks.

Then came the task of filling up 25 jars with lots of sweeties, I tried to make sure that all jars had roughly the same amount in.

All that was left to do was tie some ribbon around each jar and pop a bow on them, this I had left over from last years presents so didn't cost me a penny.

So there we have it I spent the grand total of £25 which might seem like alot but when you break it down there are 25 jars so that has cost me £1 per jar, now to try and not eat all the sweets whilst I wait for Christmas to get here :)

xxxx

Christmas Gift Guide for Girls

Now I know there are an awful lot of gift guides around, a lot of them with the same popular toys on. I thought I would write one that was slightly different.

My daughter's and I have been picking out the toys that we would like to receive from Father Christmas, there will be a couple of toys you recognise because my girls do watch the television and the adverts have persuaded them that they really need certain toys!!

1. Monster High 13 Wishes Dolls

We have an ever growing collection of these Monster High dolls. I personally find them a little scary looking but they are one of the favourite toys in this house.

The girls love watching the dvds as well.

A new Monster High film has just come out, Monster High 13 Wishes and with it new dolls have also been released.

So top of their list are Clawdeen, Frankie and Draculaura, lucky for me they are all available with 25% off at Argos at the moment.

2. Furby Boom


These little creatures seem to be at the top of every Christmas toy guide this year and they have proved to be very popular with my girls too.

Luckily they come in plenty of different colours so if they are lucky enough to get them from Santa then there will be no arguing over who has which ones.

3. Little Bird Told Me Rocking Horse

Now this toy would be for Layla. Little Bird Told Me have just introduced their new range of Heritage Stable rocking horses and I have fallen in love.

Now these are on the higher price end but they look fantastic and your child would get hours of fun from it.

There are 4 available : Rufus + Ted - 9 months+, Chester + Fred - 12 months+, Jasper - 18 months+ and Tennyson - 3 years +.

4. WOW toys Poppy's Pony Adventure

Another popular brand in our house is WOW toys.
Mummy loves the fact that there are no batteries involved and the girls love mixing all the sets together.

The one on their list is Poppy's Pony adventure but there are plenty more toys available including Ronnie Rocket, Flip n Tip Fred and Penny's Pooch n Ride.

5. Books, books and more books

All my girls are huge book worms so it is no surprise that books are on their list.

I recently reviewed two wonderful books from paragon, five little monkeys, perfect for little ones and christmas cookie stamp set, great for those aspiring bakers.

Other books on the Christmas list are ones by Jaqueline Wilson and Julia Donaldson, these authors are firm favourites here!!!

6. Lego Friends

When I was younger I was never into Lego, always saw it as a boys toy.

My girls are the complete opposite, they love it, creating and building new things.

And they love it even more since they brought out the Lego Friends range.

They have a little collection that they would love to build on.

7. Music

My daughter's were listening to music from the get go, even when pregnant with them I used to play songs to them, placing headphones on my belly.

They love to get up and dance!! My eldest is desperate for the new JLS cd, my 5 year old wants the latest one direction album and my 3 year old is obssessed with the Fox Song. Layla is happy dancing to whatever song you decided to put on, although the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse them tune really gets her up and moving.


So there we have it, a few ideas to get you thinking. Are any of these on your children's wish lists??

xxxx

Letter to Santa

Have you noticed all the Christmas adverts appearing on the TV and the numerous amount of toy adverts? Queue the start of a lot of "I wants" from the kids!!!

So I thought it was about time that the girls wrote their letters to Santa. Elise and Freya wrote their own letters whilst Nannie helped Gracie write hers and I has a good guess at what Layla might like for Christmas.

The lists weren't too long and I think they may even get some of the things they've asked for if Santa thinks they've been good enough.

The question is will they get a reply from Santa?? Have your children written their letters to Santa yet?

xxxx

Where did that year go??

When I think back to a just over a year ago, I had just given birth to a tiny little girl, my last ever baby.

Fast forward a whole year!!! And we have just celebrated little miss Layla's first ever birthday and boy was I emotional. That tiny little bundle of joy who entered the world has turned into a cheeky little monkey who makes me smile and laugh every day.

Her sister's were keen to get involved in making her first birthday special. We were lucky enough to be sent a card from InnaBox for the girls to write. The lovely card was just the right size for little hands and came complete with a set of stickers which allowed the girls to personalise it, keeping it unique for Layla, there was a good range of cards to choose from but Freya and Elise decided on a card that had a monkey on the front, very fitting in my opinion. The pictures below show the card and what they did with it, I loved that they even managed to decorate the envelope!!

Preparations continued with wrapping up presents and blowing up balloons, bit of team work between Daddy Hazelden and I, I blew up the balloons and he tied them, high five!! And I enlisted the help of my lovely Nannie to make Layla's cakes, although I did buy the cake toppers off Ebay.

Bless Layla, it was like any other day to her, she really didn't understand what was going on, if anything she found it a bit overwhwelming with all the visitors that were arriving but we kept it traditional.

Present opening.

Card reading (ripping).

And of course the eating of the birthday cake nom nom nom

If Layla could talk I'm sure she would say that she had a wonderful birthday and was spoilt like she should be. As much as I am sad to see my baby growing up, I am also excited to see the kind of child that she grows into.

Here's to the terrible twos :)

xxxx