This blog has been on hiatus WAY too long, but I thought, what better time to kickstart it again than Blogmas! So this first post is going to be a bit about me and what I love about Christmas.

Christmas has always been my favourite holiday and ever since I was little, my family have always made it magical for me and my brother. Even when, *kids look away now!* the big “Santa secret”was revealed, the magic didn't disappear. Now that I'm 25, whilst the excitement has slightly diminished, I love that we are all adults now and can still play games and enjoy more of a conversation.

Spending 12 Christmases in Australia was certainly a different experience. One that we could never quite get used to or allow ourselves to fully embrace. I think when you step away from your home country and experience the polar opposite, you truly miss what you used to take for granted. The most obvious difference was the weather. December is the beginning of summer over there, so temperatures were reaching around 30 degrees on Christmas day - there's no chance you'd wear a Christmas jumper, put it that way! Whilst most people have a roast dinner on Christmas day, my friends would have seafood platters or a BBQ and head down to the beach. We kept to the traditional roast turkey dinner even though none of us wanted to be standing over a hot stove!

The school year is different too so the kids are all off school for 6 weeks. Most people go on holiday during this time so I feel like Christmas day and Boxing day are just shoved out of the way and everybody moves on to what they had planned. There's not much of a build up - due to the constant sunshine and lighter nights - and people definitely don't go overboard with decorations. During our later years over there, the shops started making more of an effort with decorations but still only like the UK was many years ago, not like nowadays. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Christmas in Australia is awful by any means, nor will everyone have the Christmas I'm describing, these are just my opinions having experienced Christmas in both countries and how it was for us as a family.

So the past 2 years we've been living back in the UK, Christmas (and winter in general) has been a bit of a novelty for me. I really do love the cold and I think cold weather and even snow if we're lucky enough to have it, define Christmas time. I absolutely love the decorations; the lights; decorating the tree; the warm winter clothing; seeing real reindeer at the garden centres; the community feel at Christmas; watching Christmas films; the carols; catching up with friends and family; sitting and playing games and so much more.

I'm very excited to continue with Blogmas this year and really make an effort with my blog in the New Year now that I'm entering the marketing world career-wise.

Until the next post,

Amy x