On Christmas Blogging

Personally, I love What I Got For Christmas blog posts and videos. I guess it's partially because I'm so nosey, but also because I love seeing how different people react to different gifts and unique ideas that I can steal for birthdays/Christmas next year!

However, I don't think I would ever do one.

My family are in a position where on both sides (because my parents are divorced), they are financially fortunate enough to have a lot of disposable income - most of which, they choose to spend on their children. I can never fault that and I love seeing the joy that they bring into our lives by being able to spend that little bit of extra money on us, but I know a lot of people would see it as bragging, if I were to show the contents of my Christmas sack(s).

I am incredibly grateful to have what I have and my favourite part of the day was not the presents, it was sitting around as a family watching Elf in the evening after a long day of laughing at my little brother and sisters on their new roller blades, eating more food than we could imagine, and getting the chance to FaceTime my older brother, who's been in Asia since September and whom I miss very much. Would Christmas Day have been the same without the presents? Probably not, since I doubt we would have all woken up at 6am, and we wouldn't have received the shiny new outfits we all dressed up in for dinner, but they certainly weren't the highlight of my day.

I think the best kind of gifts to receive are experiences, and this year I was lucky enough to receive tickets for both Wicked the Musical in Bristol for February (let me know if you're going to see it too!) and tickets to see Ed Sheeran in Wembley in July as my main present from each of my parents. Other than those, I don't really want to go in to what I got for Christmas - I would feel too guilty for 'showing off' (even if none of you saw it like that!) if I told you everything, and I would feel too guilty and ungrateful if I didn't talk about every little thing I got.

Just to clarify, I'm not posting this to try and make my family seem super wealthy - we're not particularly, but we do go a bit overboard at Christmas so it can certainly look that way at times! I enjoy reading other peoples' posts about their presents, especially if they've also published wish lists so you can compare it to what they actually wanted! But I hate the idea that they can turn into some sort of competition and make people feel bad about what they did or didn't get this year.

The important thing about Christmas is that it's a perfect time to show people you care about them. My mum chose to do it by spending a lot of her hard-earned money on her children, which I certainly can't fault her for. I've shown it by sitting down with my family and recommended them a new film to watch every night for a week (of which they've all loved so far, so I'm pretty chuffed!)

I think this past week has given me the lowest number of views on my blog than I have had since I started this little blog and honestly, I couldn't be happier about that! It makes me feel like my readers are actually just sat down with their families, with their phones and laptops hidden away. Please, just take this chance to go and spend some time with your family while you can! Don't feel bitter towards them about what they didn't get you for Christmas this year - does that really matter?! And for those of you who do insist on posting repeatedly about Christmas (and I will admit that I'm guilty of this!) - just consider the fact that not all of your readers may celebrate Christmas. That's no need to be isolating people at this time of year.

Sorry this has turned into a bit of a rant, I just hate feeling like there's negativity and resentment on the internet at this time of the year - be grateful with what you're taking into 2015 with you and plan on how you can build on that and improve by this time next year.