Then I met Simon and moved to Newcastle and suddenly Christmas became about splitting our time between two families living on opposite sides of the country. With my lot down in Norfolk and Simon's family up in Manchester it's easy to spend a lot of the festive period driving up and down the motorway with a boot full of presents and a head full of road rage.
Christmas as an adult can get a little frantic!
So this year Simon and I decided to take the stress out of Christmas and spend Christmas just the two of us in our brand new house up here in the North East. I was so excited to start some brand new traditions, although perhaps a little worried that Christmas with two people might feel a little strange.
We decided to spend Christmas Eve cosying up in the lounge with some hot chocolate watching Christmas films. Elf and Love Actually are my favourite festive movies and definitely got us in the mood.
Being a couple of children we were up pretty early on Christmas Day ready to tear into our stockings. I've always had a stocking at Christmas so was pretty quick to introduce Simon to the idea. I love shopping for little bits to put in it and he was very happy with his collection of chocolates, toys and a few silly jokey things.
Dress code on Christmas Day is something that seems to differ from family to family. I've always enjoyed wearing fancy clothes to celebrate but this year we decided that comfort was the best plan so we agreed that Christmas jumpers would definitely be the way forward.
No Coco Pops at our Christmas breakfast, instead we decided on smoked salmon with scrambled eggs, we know how to treat ourselves! I will admit our Festive breakfast actually ended up being a little more stressful than preparing the turkey for lunch. We currently own a very limited number of pots and pans which meant attempting to make scrambled egg in a saucepan (not easy!)
Moving on to the main event and Santa had been pretty kind to us this year with lots of colourful packages under the tree. Simon bought me the most beautiful rose gold Monica Vinader personalised necklace that I'm obsessed with as well as my very first Jo Malone scent in Blackberry & Bay.
I'm afraid I'm not much of a chef so Simon volunteered to make Christmas Lunch, and as it was his first time he was a little nervous. You hear so many horror stories about preparing turkey for Christmas but with plenty of hits and tips from my Mum, Simon made us the most fantastic feast. We were both a little shocked by how tasty all of the food was, especially the turkey which was absolute heaven!
So, how did we find Christmas just the two of us? The biggest struggle was buying food to only serve two people. We had to shop around for a small turkey crown and trying to find a dessert that wasn't built for an army of 12 was a little difficult. The day itself was absolutely perfect, shutting out the world and enjoying some quality time together in our new house was just what we needed after a hectic year.
I hope you all had a great Christmas with your families and that you're all having a nice rest over the festive period. Let me know what you got up to!
