THE most wonderful time of the year!

December in London is charming. It restores my faith in this sometimes grimy and gloomy city. For one whole month (well lets be real, the lights turn on in October!) there is magic in the air and romance in the cold. We rug up in our warm woolies and I for one feel the sparkle of the fairy lights above. 

I have always loved Christmas, even when it was too hot in Brisbane to do anything but lounge around the pool and sleep, I always loved decorating the house and making Christmasy food, even if it wasn't cold and like you read about it in every Santa story. 

Last year we spent the Holidays in Charlotte, NC and New York City. Maddie was 6 months old and we had such a wonderful time celebrating a real American Christmas, complete with grits and the Rockerfeller Tree!

This year though we are spending Christmas in London, with my brother and his family coming to spend it with us. I am so excited. It will be the first Christmas I have spent with my niece and nephews, and this year Madeleine has so much more of a clue about what's going on, I can't wait to see her little face on Christmas day!

On the 1st of December every year is tree decorating and egg-nog day. So we did our decorations and had our good friends over for rum balls and eggnog! (you may have read, I cannot control myself when it comes to eggnog....)

You may have seen our beautiful Bruce (the Spruce) on the journey home...

And now we have proudly lost half of our living room to house this beauty for the next month! 

This year the theme is gold with splashes of soft pink. Randolph the advent calendar reindeer was once upon a time bright red, so he got a little makeover!

And he got a little buddy this year. But little buddy got gold'ed AND glittered!

We needed something for the top of our tree, and according to my husband, it had to be a star. I'm not sure that he has very many Christmas traditions to bring to the overly decorated table, so i'm more than okay with a star atop our tree!! So long as it was gold and glittered!!

 I made this wreath last year and was happy that it still fitted the theme this year because I just think its so cute. How funny does our tree look?! It's like half the living room!!

I made some tissue paper pom poms to hand with the bunting...

I found a really sweet bell-heart ornament (and got an extra one as a gift), but they were red! Could you believe it, red, at Christmas time! Well anyway, I'm sure you can guess what happened to ours!

And our brown paper packages have all been tied up with strings and posted all around the world!

Did I mention that I LOVE Christmas?! It is just the most wonderful time of the year. 

But today, is my husbands birthday, so Christmas is on hold today to celebrate him! Tonight we are off for a date night out, with our first London babysitter watching Maddie. But today we've been busy preparing to celebrate when he gets home. I better write my card now, tough act to follow!

Happy Birthday Husband, and Happy December to all and to all a good night!