For as long as I can remember, my parents and I have always had the same traditions over the Christmas period. It starts by my mum nagging my dad that we have to get a tree, so we can decorate it and look forward to Christmas properly. That part starts about the last week of November. Then at the beginning of December will be the big shop – we would get basically everything for Christmas dinner weeks early “before it gets too busy”. Everything but the potatoes. Then one of my favourite days would be Christmas Eve.
What’s so special about Christmas Eve at my parents’ house is that every year we do a huge food spread. A massive one. We would usually skip lunch because a LOT of food was on the way. It would consist of a lot of picky bits – chicken-based things, sausage rolls, crisps, fruit, prawns, cakes and all sorts from Iceland. I love the tradition so much that I had to carry it on now I’m a mum myself.
Thankfully I can get my mum around to do all of the cooking on the day!
Last Christmas it was such a relief to have my mum take care of everything in the kitchen because it was the first year that Cameo understood what Christmas was. And it was really exciting for him. He kept reminding me that Santa was coming. Kept telling his little brother. Kept telling daddy. Everyone needed to know that he was getting lots of presents the next day. He was so excited!
It made it even more important that we kept to our usual bedtime routine with him – but with a little bit of a Christmas twist. We did the usual Moon & Me, then Masha & The Bear before his bath. But there’s also other parts of his routine that we need to keep in place. So for example, he has a night light which we’ve just replaced with an amazing LED penguin lamp from Room to Grow which is a lovely website offering everything you need to help your kids get the best night sleep. From lamps to children’s bedroom furniture. It’s a lovely little company that makes us think they really care about their customers.
On another note, we’ve just put Cameo into his ‘big boy bed’ and he is doing SO well. We’ve had a couple of sleepwalks, but I used to sleepwalk REALLY bad, so that’s to be expected. I’m loving that it looks like a kids room now and not a baby room. But there is so much work to be done. From chests of drawers to new bed linen. But it’s all very exciting!
But before we went up on Christmas Eve, we had to put out a mince pie for Santa, and a carrot for Rudolph. After his bath, he was dressed in his festive PJs and reassured a final time that Santa will have been by the time he wakes up.
We made sure pretty much everything was the same in his routine so that he didn’t wake up earlier than usual or try to stay awake for longer than he should. And it paid off. We got a standard 6.30 am wake up call from him and his little brother. Oh, and of course, I treated myself to a good old hot chocolate with a tonne of marshmallows for good luck! To be honest, we’re pretty strict on bedtime routines, even on special days. We know for a FACT that lack of sleep or a major disruption to their routines makes them grumpy little beans. Which is the last thing we wanted on Christmas Day! It paid off, we had a fab Christmas and made some lovely memories. I hope you did too!
