{little christmas moments} emotional mummy

Christmas is an exciting time of year; packed full of festive adventures and anticipation as the big day draws near. I have always loved Christmas time, and never more so than now I have my own children to enjoy it with. I say it every year, but for me, having children just sets the magic of Christmas on fire; heightening every experience and making it so special.

I've always been a big kid when it comes to Christmas, and even in my adult years before the children came along, I always fully embraced the excitement and merriment of this time of year. I was always the most excited teacher on the school trip to the panto... actually make that the most excited person, because those children had nothing on me! I loved the build up and always made Christmas as special as possible for the children in my class. And I didn't just save it for my class, I would wear christmas hats and make my husband (then boyfriend) take embarrassing hat selfies in front of the tree, as well as playing nothing but Christmas tunes in my car for the entirety of December. It's fair to say, I'm nuts about Christmas.

But as I've grown older, and become a parent, Christmas has also made me very emotional. Please... somebody tell me I'm not alone. Does December make other people a little unhinged too? The giddy excitement seems to be matched with completely random bouts of tears, for both happy or sad reasons.

So far this year the list of things that have set me off has included but is not limited to; hearing Fairytale of New York while putting up the tree (this same thing also made me cry last year), festive television adverts (damn you Sainsbury's and John Lewis), getting out special decorations ("Oh this was from his very first Christmas" and "Ahhh, my Granny bought this for me"), listening to Band Aid (old one, new one, I'm not fussy!), watching The Polar Express (especially the last bit when his parents don't hear the bell... sniff sniff), hearing my little man practise his Christmas songs (heaven only knows how I'll get through his nativity), seeing the beautiful Christmas tree at Somerset House, watching The Snowman, my children's reaction to seeing the Christmas tree for the first time, my beautiful boy deciding he would like green socks from Father Christmas, my beautiful girl looking at the tree then saying "I love it, I love you Mummy."

It's actually pretty exhausting. And I never know when it's going to hit. I'm not normally that much of a crier, but my goodness, I seem to make up for it in one month of the year. So please, please, please tell me that other people get really emotional this time of year too... or am I just going a little bit crazy with Christmas fever?