I’ve been super busy the past week getting into the Christmas spirit and having lots of festive adventures, food and fun. I’ve actually been extremely busy as of late trying to juggle my Certified Internal Auditor exam with the house purchase, wedding planning, then house move, and keeping up to my blog – I even took my study materials on both holidays with me this year (Greece & Las Vegas), and spent the flight times revising trying to cram everything in – it’s been pretty hectic. However, the good news is that on Friday I passed the exam, and I can finally breathe. I’ve decided to take the whole of December off, and then get back to studying part two in January – which I’m actually already looking forward to – and this time it won’t be as pressured, as with part 1 of the exam, I had a deadline; part 2 I’m able to do in my own time. Anyway, I purposely booked my exam on November 30th so that pass or fail, I could just take some time out and really enjoy the festive period… your Christmas spirit tends to be pretty non existent when you have a stressful exam deadline, so I’m pleased to say it’s well and truly back.
The weekend before the exam, my friend and I went over to Harrogate to enjoy our annual tradition of festive afternoon tea at Mama Doreens. It just wouldn’t be Christmas time without doing it, and we look forward to it every year. It was a great way to also break my final revision weekend up, and give myself a bit of a treat for working so hard that week. As usual it didn’t disappoint, and it really sparked that Christmassy feeling for me. I also picked up two gorgeous tops in the sale – a Zoe Karssen sweater, and a Chinti & Parker cashmere jumper, I’m really pleased with my purchases, especially as I managed to grab them both at discount.
After a MASSIVE high on Friday morning with passing the exam, that evening we had both our nephews (mine and my boyfriends) to stay the night – another festive tradition that we do now. We usually have a Christmassy sleepover, then the next day go to Stockheld Park for the day, and pay Santa a visit. The evening consisted of lots of sweets, hot chocolates, way too much party food, gingerbread decorating, Santa letter writing and then finally settling down for the night to watch The Christmas Chronicles (I recommend). And somewhere in between all of this, I even managed to get the Christmas tree up.
The next day, unfortunately we had to give Stockheld Park a miss because it was non stop raining, so instead we ventured over to Castle Howard in York for their Christmas trail and Santa visit.
After lots of excitement, we then went to our local garden centre for hot chocolates and cake, then dropped them both home and retreated back to our house for a few gins and bed! Having a 6 and 7 year old sleeping over, both extremely hyped up on sugar and excitement is tiring,ย tiring, but lots and lots of fun.
On the Sunday, we went with my mum to check out our new local pub. It’s a “proper pub” that sells lovely sunday dinners, has real open fires, is dog friendly, and has a great selection of gin. Obviously it was roasts all round, and I even managed to save room for some hand made chocolate truffles and an espresso martini. Lovely!
After that, my mum and I had an afternoon in the spa at our wedding venue – by our, I obviously mean mine and my boyfriends, not mine and my mums! Anyhow, because we booked the wedding there, we get a huge array of benefits, including use of their new spa. Craig and I were actually booked in on the Sunday to use it, but at the moment we’re building up the spare rooms in the new house, and Craig was really keen to get the new office set up – so offered his place to my mum instead.
We had such a lovely afternoon lazing by their pool, hogging the foot spas (they were amazing), and relaxing in the infinity jacuzzi. I also got a beautiful handmade bauble from there which I’ll be able to treasure forever. It’s painted with the chapel we are marrying in, and the building we are having the wedding reception in afterwards – it’s so beautiful and one of my favourite festive purchases ever.
I will be continuing with my wedding venue series in the new year, documenting all the venues we looked at before booking ours – although, if I’m being honest there was never any doubt over where we wanted it – however it was lots of fun, and I’m now enjoying hunting with my friend for her venue. Keep your eyes peeled on the blog for lots more venue inspiration to come, but for now, here’s a sneak peek at where we booked…
