christmas in our house

Anyone who follows me on Twitter will have noticed a serious amount of excitement 

building up in my tweets this last week.

Because I've been building up to an exciting occasion.

The arrival of the Christmas fairies.

I've always loved Christmas;

the tree,

the twinkly lights,

the cosiness,

the time spent with family.

The general magic of the season

still has the same overwhelming effect on me

that it did when I was a child.

But this year I've been even more excited that normal,

because this year I get to enjoy Christmas so much more,

because I get to see it through the eyes of a child.

Last year when I was heavy with child

and lovingly joked about in the school staffroom

because I could portray a very accurate Mary in the nativity,

I was thinking about how exciting this Christmas would be.

And now my own little miracle gift is here

and ready to enjoy his first Christmas.

And. . .

I. am. so. excited!

Putting the tree up is always a big deal for me.

My brother and I always put up the tree together as children.

And now that I have my own tree

it is very much MY job to do it.

In fact I prefer to decorate the tree when my husband is out

so that he can't see how long I spend 

lingering over the precise placement of my precious baubles.

And with it being the little guy's first Christmas,

this year we had to think about developing our own family traditions.

Now I loved putting up the tree with my brother

but there is absolutely no way

that I will ever be allowing a child to decorate my Christmas tree.

It is far to beautiful

and I love doing it far too much.

So instead

our family will be visited by Christmas fairies

every year

on November 30th.

They will come when children are asleep

and sprinkle Christmas magic all over the house.

And then

on December 1st

little children will get up to discover that Christmas has arrived.

Doesn't that sound magical?

So the fairies came last night

and they sprinkled their Christmas sparkles.

And they have reminded me just how much I love a Christmassy home.

Which got me thinking. . .

Everyone's idea of a perfect Christmas is different.

Every family has different traditions.
Every decoration has a story.
Christmas is different in every house
but magic in its own way.

So I'm opening up a "Christmas In Our House" linky.
It will be open from December 1st until twelfth night (because I'm traditional like that!)
So link up what your house looks like at Christmas.
Tell me all about your traditions
and what is special about Christmas for you.

You can consider this your present to me,
because it will make me one happy Christmas fairy.