I'm absolutely thrilled to be joined in my Book Corner today by the lovely Jules Wake as we kick off her blog tour for her book, From Paris With Love This Christmas.
Jules has joined me today and is talking about her top ten festive things!
Jules has joined me today and is talking about her top ten festive things!
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Thanks for having me on your blog, Laura.
I love a good Christmas book, perhaps because they take all
the best bits of Christmas and remind you of the best bits of your own
Christmas holidays.
My top ten favourite things about Christmas are, in no
particular order:
1.Mince Pies
There’s something special about these little golden parcels
of pasty with their piping hot contents that say Christmas like nothing
else.
When I was a little girl, I would
help my granny make mince pies and as the WI president, she was something of an
expert. Now I make them with my son (not
to WI standard) and it’s our special time together (even though he’s now taller
than me).
Making the first batch of
mince pies really kicks off the festive season in our house.
2. Window Displays
Christmas brings back so many special memories, one of which
is of my much loved Granny (she of WI fame) who used to take me and my sister
to London to visit Father Christmas at Selfridges.
I remember skipping along outside the huge
plate glass windows absolutely entranced by the fabulously opulent
displays.
Every year I still make a
visit to Oxford Street to see the Selfridges window displays, which are always
so clever and imaginative, although these days I give Santa a miss.
3. Christmas Morning Drinks
On Christmas morning we invite friends and their relatives
to the house for drinks.
The key thing
here is ‘their relatives’ – we all know Christmas with the rellies can become a
bit fraught, so this gives people a little bit of a break on the day.
It’s much easier to be sociable with someone
else’s Great Aunt Ethel when you know you haven’t got her all day!
4. Champagne Cocktails
My husband makes a mean Champagne cocktail, with a sugar
cube, Angostura Bitters, Brandy and Champagne. They can be lethal but go down
very well, although one year we almost sabotaged a friend’s lunch when her
husband after consuming several glasses was too inebriated to cook.
5. Lights
In the small market town I live in we have an annual
Christmas Fayre which marks the official switching on of the town lights. The high street is decked in white lights, a
Christmas tree in the square and illuminations which have been designed by
children in local schools.
Each year the
town council holds a competition among the schools to find the best design and
each year one new decoration is put up.
It’s such a lovely thing and the growing collection looks absolutely
beautiful. Every time I drive through the town, seeing all the lights lifts my
heart.
6. Stockings
I love putting together the stockings for my family and I
try to make them as fun and inventive as possible. They have the standard things in like a
satsumas, chocolate coins and reindeer, but I also try to include silly things
that the children like or will make them smile.
My son loves jam, so he always gets a pot of jam in his stocking.
I also
try to include lots of practical things like pencil sharpeners, erasers, nail
varnish, guitar strings and hair wax.
7. The Tree
Our Christmas tree is a big deal. It has to be real, the
whole family has to be present for it to be decorated and the day it is put up
is the official start of Christmas in our house.
Decorating it is a real family affair and we
reminisce about past Christmas’s and relatives who are no longer with us, as we
unwrap the decorations which have been ceremonially brought down from the loft. This is a really special time as it’s like
unwrapping a great big memory box.
8. Carols in the Car Park
I can’t sing a note in tune but when you’re in a cold car
park, your feet virtually iced to the floor, there’s something rather wonderful
about singing along at the top of your voice to Christmas carols with a brass
band playing on the back of an articulated lorry.
This happens every year on Christmas Eve in
our local town and it’s a wonderful occasion when generations of families turn
up to sing together.
9. Family
My absolute favourite part of Christmas, is Christmas Day
breakfast. We all sit down together to
eat our favourite smoked salmon, bagels and cream cheese and no one has to be
anywhere else or do anything else in this time.
It’s such a rarity in modern life, for us all to be together and I
really treasure it.
10. Crisis for Christmas
It might sound a bit strange that one of my favourite things
about Christmas is the charity Crisis for Christmas.
Unfortunately, Christmas is a time of
conspicuous consumption and over indulgence for many, while there are lots of
people who are not so fortunate, especially the homeless.
Each year this fantastic charity, transforms
several venues around the country to provide temporary shelter for homeless people
for just over one week.
Thousands of
people volunteer their time to go and work in the shelters during the festive
period to help provide warmth, food and shelter for those people who have ended
up on the streets for many, many different reasons.
Crisis embodies the spirit of generosity that
Christmas should be about.
Thank you Jules for a lovely post - I think most people will agree that family is a priceless time at Christmas due to no-one having to rush off and I love the fact you still put Satsuma's in stockings!
If you would like to know more about
Crisis For Christmas
please click the following link.
http://www.crisis.org.uk/pages/christmas.html
Jules Wake Bio
Bred but not born in Yorkshire, Jules considers herself an
honorary Yorkshire woman and despite living in the Chilterns still misses
proper hills. She’s wanted to be a
writer forever and blames this on her grandmother taking her at a young age to
the Bronte’s parsonage in Haworth.
Despite early lofty ambitions, the path to published
novelist took a wide diversion when after reading English at the University of
East Anglia, she found herself in the glamorous and deeply shallow world of PR,
which she rather enjoyed, and spent a number of years honing her fictional
writing skills on press releases.
After taking a creative writing course and finding no local
writing group, she set up the Tring Writers’ Circle seven years ago. As a result it was incumbent upon her to set
a good example and actually write, which was rather fortunate as with a genuine
allergy to cleaning, she finds writing offers the perfect displacement
activity.
Jules' Christmas novel, From Paris With Love At Christmas, is available to buy now.
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