Life & blog update: December 2023 was…an amazing month. Lots of festive activities, Christmas markets, celebrating my 40^th birthday in London, meeting up with my best friends and lots of fun evenings with guests. I really couldn’t have asked for a better December!

Our festive activities commenced with a Christmas workshop for kids. My kids made Christmas cards. Then, we put up our Christmas tree on 2 December and I made some festive hot chocolate. On St. Nicholas’s day we visited Santa’s post office, rode a kid’s Christmas train and ate roasted chestnuts and fritule. This year was our third visit to Delnice Christmas market by a special Christmas train where kids got Christmas presents from Santa while enjoying the train ride. It snowed the night before so my son and his friends literally dived into snow. They had so much fun! My daughter was excited to try pony riding again and go on a short horse carriage ride. We’ve also attended kids’s day at Trsat castle and watched its exquisite Christmas lights.

My husband had some business to attend in Trieste, Italy so I convinced him to take me and our kids along. While he was at a meeting, we walked around Trieste’s Christmas market. Kids loved the old-fashioned carousel ride. Our last Christmas market was Opatija which hosts the most beautiful advent by the sea. We came across a free children’s theater show too. As always, Opatija has the most beautiful Christmas decorations.

My husband and I celebrated my 40^th birthday in London. It was a short stay but we had lots of fun tracking down filming locations from TV series Ted Lasso in Richmond (Greater London). We had some drinks at the real pub from the show! I really liked Richmond upon Thames and I’d love to visit it again. Of course, we visited a couple of Christmas markets in Central London such as Covent garden , Trafalgar square, Winter by the river. I ticked off some of the items from my last year’s list as well e.g. Daunt books. London is always magnificent, especially so during festive season and it was wonderful to wake up in London on my birthday.

Last year I had covid-19 for Christmas so we couldn’t have had a family Christmas. Even though it was just us, without the grandparents or relatives, it was still good. But this year, we spent Christmas day with my husband’s family in Italy. Despite all the delicious meals, my daughter only ate bread, what can I say…

We entertained the whole week between Christmas and New Year’s. We invited our board gaming friends for some fun, festive gaming. I’ve also celebrated my birthday with my best friends again.

We had a children’s New year’s party this year. We invited our friends with kids and it was fun. We all welcomed in new year with a small fireworks display in our garden despite the rain. Kids stayed up quite late, until 1. 30 AM.

I usually watch a lot of Christmas movies during November and December. Unfortunately, there weren’t any big hits this year but I did saw a couple of interesting Hallmark Christmas movies set in beautiful locations. I really liked these movies: My Norwegian holiday (set in Bergen, Norway), A Merry Scottish Christmas, A Heidelberg holiday (Heidelberg, Germany), Christmas in Notting Hill ( references to Notting Hill movie and Ted Lasso TV series).

My blog stats went through the roof in December and I managed to surpass my last year’s stats. I am very grateful for all your likes and comments. I continued to share my Christmas mugs and Christmas ornaments posts like every festive season. I’m so glad that you share my enthusiasm for all things festive!

What do you think of my new blog theme (look) ? I’m not entirely sure if I’ll keep it or change it again soon even though it took me a couple of hours to adjust it.

All in all, December was excellent and I felt great. I’m looking forward to 2024 and all good things that it may bring!

Published posts in December

Happy January!

xoxox

Tanja