It's Time For A SHIFT In Perspective

I stand once more at the brink of a life-changing year, and I can't help but wonder anew whether New Years Eve would still be better spent at home by myself. Oh the folly of expectation! I have yet to learn my lesson that succumbing to New Year's hype, however good natured my intentions, will continue to leave me with unravelled and unsatisfying plans 7 hours before midnight. Woohoo. But let us not despair, I owe 2011 a good ringing out and this little blip will not deflate my balloon of joy just yet.

No, even though everything within me wants to slump disheartened into my PJs holding my lavender scented dinosaur, accompanied by a couple of my witty Kendrick girls to usher the New Year in with jolly hockeysticks and a good dose of Adovocat, I will push through my cynicism and feed the burning spontaneity that, in Bracknell, is so often neglected.

I'm going to splash glitter on my eyelids, pack a change of clothes and hop on that train with my Kindle and a flask of Christmas coffee. I will revel in the sights and smells of my favourite city teetering on the threshold of its next chapter, then, I will stumble through the underground with my oyster card to get to Hammersmith where I shall meet with some uni friends to attend SHIFT: an event for 20-30s who want to bring about a culture shift. Perhaps spontaneity is the veil that, tonight, cloaks my deep dissatisfaction with comfortable Christianity (apologies, over passionate, at a loss for a better expression). I am going to London tonight because nothing is going to stop me from spending New Years Eve worshipping my saviour and uniting with people who are as passionate as I am about making a difference to society. I'm not saying that those who cannot and would rather not attend said event are not life or world changers, I am merely advocating that, for myself, attending this event is a statement and a declaration of how I mean to carry on.

New Year's Eve is so often an anti-climax as the passing of time becomes more prominent and feels more relentless than ever. We turn inward to either languish in self-pity or abet our own self importance and then forward to a long or short, unachievable list of resolutions. I am insanely bored of hailing December 31st/January 1st as the genesis of new beginnings. The bible tells me that everyday is a new chapter, a fresh start, another helping of grace. So let us party, let us celebrate but let us not be afraid, let us not heap monumental significance on the coming year and place too much human expectation on poor 2012. God has gone before us and we just need to follow him step by step, day by day, minute by minute, breath by breath.

Christmas Eve To-Do List

1. Watch some Christmassy musical cheer: Judy Garland singing Have Yourself a Merry Little

Christmas and Bing singing White Christmas. What more could you want!?

2. Arrange presents under the tree, then sit and admire all the pretty decorations.

3. Get out all my Christmas stories and put them by my bed so I can read them before going to sleep.

4. Do some last minute wrapping. I love the classic brown paper and string. It's cheap and cheerful!

5. Dress my American Girl Dolls in their Christmas dresses. Possibly my favourite Christmas presents of all time - I love these dolls!

6. Dig out my stocking and hang it on my door. Stocking homemade by my mother.

7. Have a raclette dinner with friends and family. Christmas Eve tradition. SO MUCH CHEESE.

Now I'm ready to wrap up, bundle into the car with some of closest friends and go to midnight mass at Guilford Cathedral (we did this last year, it's become a bit of a tradition now). I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas! To all my fellow bloggers, I expect lots of gorgeous Christmas Day blogs (please!)

HAPPY CHRISTMAS

A Cheeky Brunch on Gloucester Road

To celebrate the end of term a few of my house mates and I decided to mosey on down to Gloucester Road for a spot of brunch. Clifton was too expensive and we were keen to test new waters and determined to scour the array of charity shops for last minute Christmas presents. After a few tentative menu readings we settled on The Social, found at the mouthpiece of Stokes Croft.

It was a perfect, perfect choice. The interior is so rustic and cosy, with lots of lovely Christmas trees and twinkly lights. The seating is split between large, squashy sofas and straight backed wooden chairs, the tables between coffee tables, small round tables, tables for four and large trestle-like wooden beasts. There is essentially a table and a chair for everyone! We grabbed an intimate table for four along with a couple of their hardback menus and started perusing the Breakfast choices. Being a wheatard* it's often a challenge to find something with suitable ingredients let alone something that actually tastes nice! Brunch and Breakfast menus are generally off limits for me because bread seems to be the meal staple. However, The Social serve a Bubble and Squeak with Poached Egg brunch, making my order unusually simple (I usually have to be a bit creative and create my own meal out of sides or omit certain parts of the dish) My friend Ellie had poached Eggs with Hollandaise sauce and Shumi and Nicki had toasted sandwiches with mushrooms, beetroot and fries.

The coffee was good, the company delicious - overall an incredibly successful outing. I will definitely be returning sometime in the New Year!

After eating our fill we headed straight for our Charity Shop mission, starting at The Salvation Army shop. We all came out with items for £2! What a marvel, charity shops that are actually cheap! I, unfortunately, had to cut my bargain hunting task short, as I had to catch my train home, but I gather the girls continued the cheap, festive fun all the way up Gloucester Road. JEALOUS.

Where have you bought most of your Christmas Presents this year? Shops? Internet? Ebay? Handmade?

What The Season Brings: A Bit of Deutschland

As may or may not know, I lived in Germany for two years as a child, which means I experienced two very German, very wonderful Christmasses. They were idyllic, partly as a result of childhood nostalgia but also because Germans just know how to celebrate Christmas. There is the promise of snow, and AUTHENTIC Christmas markets and Lebekuchen and Kinderpunch and huge Christmas trees and gorgeous toy shops and tasteful decorations and beautiful nativity scenes and proper wooden nutcracker soldiers chocolate covered fruit etc etc. As a family it's hard to celebrate Christmas without evoking elements of our time spent in Deutschland, whether it's looking at our German Christmas decorations or making Gingerbread houses or still celebrating St. Nikolas on the 6th of December, we can't help but be reminded of those two very blessed years.

So, when I heard about the German market in Bristol town centre and that REAL Germans were operating the stalls, I felt a huge compulsion to go and indulge in some German festive cheer. On my last night of the term, we wondered down to Broadmead and I ordered us a Bratwurst with extra Sauerkraut IN GERMAN - it was SO SO yummmy. The market stalls themselves still felt a little bit tacky, but if Christmas markets outside of Germany were all really authentic and beautiful then there would be no reason for people to visit the originals, so I wasn't too fussed. It was just a lovely way to get into the Christmas spirit - we even walked passed Christmas Steps, I have ALWAYS wanted to be near Christmas Steps at Christmas time, not for any particular reason other than to say I was there...hahaha.

It was so nice to wrap up all snug in our winter woollens - but what has happened to the weather since!? This Christmas is so mild!

Christmas in Clifton

I really love Clifton and I really REALLY love Clifton at Christmas time. Everything is so quaint and classic and family friendly. The Saturday before last I was strolling back from my little jazzy jam with Hornstars when I bumped into my friends Jonni and Alex. They told me that I should run home, grab my camera and head to the Christmas Fayre on Royal York Crescent. I'm SO glad I went, even if I was all by myself.

The Crescent was filled with all things Clifton, from homemade bunting, lucky dip, a barber shop choir, a very wholesome Father Christmas Grotto (not Santa, we are in Clifton DARH-ling) and not forgetting a stall from Lahloo Pantry - a new cafe in the village. I had a lovely chat with the man on the cafe stall and he even gave me a free mince pie with my hot spiced apple drink (I didn't have the heart to tell him I was Gluten free...and I did actually have a cheeky nibble - it was really good!)

It was really rather perfect. The view from Royal York Crescent is quite spectacular and formed a stunning backdrop for this charming festivity - it just made me fall in love with Clifton EVEN more.

What The Season Brings: Christmas Markets

Christmas markets are really rather gorgeous. That's why Laura and I made sure we visited the one on the Champs D'Elyseé during our whistle-stop tour of Paris. It really got us in the Christmas spirit. We picked up some 'vin chaud' and perused all the colourful stalls - unfortunately it was all a little out of our price range!

The original plan was to buy dinner, but €6 for a Sausage is a bit steep, non? I hate to say it, but we ended our sparkly, parisian evening in McDonalds - hahaha. So classy. It was still lovely to enjoy an evening full of christmas lights, music and cheer.

Oh The Irony!

My Dad has always gone through various musical phases. the most prominent (or the ones I remember the most) have been the country music and the jazz episodes. As I kid I could quite happily bop along to the Dixie Chicks or Lyle Lovett and Shania was pretty mainstream back then, but I couldn't abide jazz. I honestly detested it. I'd complain whenever it was put on in the car or whenever Dad wanted to show off a new CD to his friends. It'll be of no surprise to you that I was a pretty vocal and opinionated tween, and I distinctly remember one evening kicking up a massive fuss about Dad putting on Stacey Kent after dinner, when one of our family friends (knowing that I was an aspiring Charlotte church wannabe) challenged me. He said that he was sure my music taste would change eventually and that I might even be more of a jazz singer than a classical music singer, to which I scoffed and went off in a sulk.

Over the years I have grown to appreciate jazz more and more and ironically Stacey Kent now holds the most number of albums on my ipod! But what makes me laugh EVEN more is the fact that on Monday night I had my first gig as a 'jazz singer' (let's keep that in inverted commas because I still sounded pretty musical theatre!) but that's not the point, the point is that I got paid to sing jazz and I loved EVERY second of it. The band were honestly the most talented musicians I have EVER had the honour of playing with and I've definitely caught that jazzin', scattin', improvisin' bug.

God has such a sense of humour. Isn't it funny how our tastes change so drastically? I guess the lesson here is never say never!

Paris: The Eiffel Tower

So, like I said, I managed to get up the Eiffel Tower. Now, I'm not usually one for tourist attractions, in fact I usually steer as far away from them as possible - I dislike crowds and I can't abide long queues (this is why I'm not that great with theme parks - I'm too impatient) however, the Eiffel Tower is definitely worth the wait AND the money. I tried desperately to be chic and nonchalant like Audrey and Fred in Funny Face, but alas that's not so easy when you're silently unbalanced. We used the lift for most of it, but we did have to climb down to the first floor to use the toilet - I tell you it was terrifying!!

But the views, ohhhhh the views. My mother is a sucker for views, annoyingly so, I remember we went on a walking holiday in Germany once, and apart form like 3 photos where we were drinking hot chocolate or looking grumpy in our walking boots, most of them were of views (you know the kind that aren't actually possible to catch on film). I tried my best to capture them, but my camera ain't no flashy DSLR and I my photo editing software is incredibly modest. But they were incredible!

We were fortunate that just as we were stepping off the tower it started to light-up! It was awesome but unfortunately we couldn't stay long to admire it because we'd both forgotten to bring scarves and the temperature dropped quite suddenly.

What The Season Brings: Pumpkin Pie and Holiday Inn

2 weeks ago, after a crazy week of deadlines, Louis and I decided to kick started our holiday cheer by baking Pumpkin Pie and watching Holiday Inn. It was so much fun. We followed the recipe from Delightfully Tacky except we used a real pumpkin (from Gloucester Road) and Mrs. Crimbles Gluten Free Pastry. After carving the pumpkin we put the flesh into the microwave for about 20 minutes so that it was soft and gooey a bit like the tinned stuff (only more organic!) I went a little too crazy with the butter, so our pastry was a little bit salty and Louis went a bit nuts with the nutmeg, but other than that it was pretty yummy!

I also bought us some vanilla coffee because Whittards were having a 25% off day. I love the smell of vanilla coffee it always reminds me of America and Christmas and it was the perfect accompaniment for our pie. It was so perfect to be in a warm kitchen filled with the sweet aroma of vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and pumpkin listening to Christmas Music and making a mess out of a gourd.

After our baking sesh we sat and watched Holiday Inn, which is possibly my favourite Christmas film of all time. Listening to Bing crooooon and Fred Astaire do his firecracker dance is definitely the best way to welcome in Advent. Plus, it was shown through a projector - how many times do you get to see the old classics on the big screen these days!? I feel so very blessed.

What are your favourite Christmas films?