Best Bits: December 2018

And with the blink of an eye, December 2018 was over. As was 2018. I can't believe how quickly this year has passed us by. And what a year it has been! So many ups, with a couple of downs. My 2018 summary will be coming over the next couple of days.

Birthday. Earlier this month, I turned another year older wiser. To celebrate, Emma, Lulu and Sj came round the day before for a movie afternoon and lots of snacks and alcohol. Sj stayed on for dinner and we picked up some pizzas and chips from the Douvres. On the actual day, James and I headed out for Chinese at lunch with his mum, sister and my family. Once we were home, we sat down to watch How The Grinch Stole Christmas but I ended up napping through the whole movie.

Manchester. James and I headed off to Manchester for the day after my birthday for a spot of shopping and to see the Christmas Market. A trip to Hard Rock Café also made it into our day. If there's a Hard Rock near where we're staying on any holiday, James and I will also put aside an evening to go to Hard Rock Café - we LOVE their food and the atmosphere and the staff are always so friendly, no matter which location you visit.

 

 

Liverpool. After spending a day in Manchester, we headed down to Liverpool before having to catch our flight back home. We hit the shops, strolled through the Albert Dock and sat in the Christmas Market with mulled wine. As we went to catch our train, a big group of Italian football fans came marching down the platform chanting away as they went off to watch their match at Anfield. We were wondering why the police were scattered around the train station.

Work Christmas party. This year, I only attended my full time job's Christmas party. The company headed out for lunch at our usual Christmas lunch location for an afternoon of food, alcohol, chatting, Secret Santa and festivities. While people were heading out into town for the rest of the evening, I decided to call it a night and headed to the meat draw with James. We went home empty handed this time unfortunately.

Christmas Jumper Day. My work celebrated the day a week later due to our staff party falling on the same day as the national Christmas Jumper Day. We did a raffle (I unfortunately didn't win the top prize - travel voucher - but I did win pink prosecco), guess the name of the reindeer, how many sweets in a jar, best Christmas jumper (if it was best Christmas outfit, I think id have won, but the winner wore a jumper that was shaped as a Christmas tree) and we had a cake sale.

Christmas drinks. James and I had Sj, Emma and her boyfriend round for Christmas drinks the week before Christmas. We started off with sangria and a couple of drinking games before we decided to move on to cocktails in town.

Christmas drive. Following on from last year, James, Sj and I put on our Christmas jumpers and jumped in the car, put on Christmas songs and went for a drive around the island to see all of the lights and sing along to the music.

Yule Logs. I love the chocolate yule logs that M&S do every year at Christmas. I'm not even exaggerating when I say that Christmas would not be complete without one of these beauties! In previous years, these have been coming out about a week or so before Christmas because the best before dates aren't great but this year, they came out before my birthday so I was very happy when James' mum managed to pick one up for me for my birthday.

Christmas Eve. I would never book Christmas Eve off of work (unless I end up spending a Christmas away on holiday) so the morning was set to be like any other Monday, just more casual and festive. However, the office was closed at the last minute so we got an extra day off over the festive period and I was glad for the extra lay in on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Day. James and I spent lunchtime separately with our own families. He had lunch with my mum and his nan while I had lunch with my gran and my aunt. When my mum and I had our dog, Hetty, we'd take her for a walk along her favourite beach and back across the golf course that sits on the common area next to the beach. As we, unfortunately, haven't done that for a couple of years now, I like to join my gran for a dog walk on Christmas Day.

Holiday planning. James and I have finially finished booking the flights for our next holiday. We'll be heading off to LA, San Francisco and Vancouver during the Spring and I'm so excited as these are cities I have wanted to visited for about seven years. We have spent months just looking at flights and what the costs are so to say we managed to book flights at half the original cost, despite some flights going up in price, I think we did pretty well. It certainly paying off to look at booking with the less popular airlines. All we need to do now is start booking our accommodation and look at how we want to fill our time in the cities.

Charlotte.