Advent Calendars
It’s a funny old time December, half of me is a wee bit excited by the whole dressing the place for the season to be jolly, the other half wants to curl up on the sofa with a mug of hot chocolate, thick socks and a blanket and watch movies and yes I have an actual Advent calendar!
It’s not quite the same without family around but even if we were still in UK family is spread all over the country so we would be in the same boat there too. Here we have good friends nearby and we will be spending Boxing Day, my birthday, celebrating with them. In time honoured tradition I have started my Christmas countdown on Tea and Toast facebook page use this link to like and follow my page on Facebook and you can scroll through all the entries to date and if you like and share the posts the new ones should show up in your newsfeed. Some are decor ideas and some have links to simple DIY instructions. This year I am keeping it simple with us all being squeezed financially so expect some free or at least inexpensive ideas and treats.
This time of year is also beset with trials and tribulations, I would shop more locally if there were somewhere that catered for us larger British folk, retailers don’t stock clothes or shoes for taller longer people with bigger feet, the locals are all much smaller than us overgrown Brits. We also don’t have a lot of independent makers markets that sell quality produce so I resort to Etsy and online retailers. This brings with it happy packages arriving and unhappy packages being chased because they are stuck in some warehouse somewhere or, worse still, at customs. I won’t go into the pain of chasing these I have wasted enough of my time on emails that get more fractious by the hour. Just for clarity there are some companies I would recommend in a flash, Marks and Spencer were magnificent as always, simple to order, smooth tracking, no delivery costs, arrived on time and just sent me a follow up email for feedback so they can improve their service. Top notch Marks! Not so for other big names, Next UK and Yours Clothing UK, both of whom sell through .es Spanish sites but actually ship from the UK which kind of defeats the object if you don’t have decent delivery partners and tracking. One of my Next deliveries is stuck in limbo and my Yours delivery got returned and refunded without even reaching me, the delivery agent just decided that’s what they were going to do!
Subject to an expected delivery we may or may not get our tree today, we like a real one, if not it will definitely be Friday and I will spend the weekend getting the house all Christmasified. Hopefully Sunday I will be able to sit with my hot chocolate, woolly socks and a blanket watching movies from my sofa.
