Making memories...

I have lost my Christmas spirit this year.

I have looked for it, searched for it, even tried calling for it...but it hasn't replied and hasn't turned up on my door with as much as a mince pie.

I always love Christmas.

I am a big sucker for the whole package of Christmas celebrations, following Santa on NORAD and generally behaving like a small child with the excitement of it all. However, with just under three weeks to go no matter how many Christmas songs I sing, I still am just not feeling it.

I know I am not the only one.

I am not talking about the usual 'bah humbugs', but quite a few of my friends are really not feeling the love for Christmas this year, due to their own stresses, financial worries and for many, it being the first Christmas that they will be alone or alone with their children after a separation.

The first of anything after an emotional break up is hard, but Christmas of course comes with the memories of being with loved ones, of feeling content with life and of giving. Doesn't it?

For some of us that will still be true, but I have thought hard about this this morning, and in truth, the last few Christmas' have not been that joyous or fun from the company point of view, and anything that we did do that was fun was normally down to things I arranged and organised.

Whilst it is true that financially things are tighter than a ducks arse, and there won't be an abundance of presents under our hobbit decorated tree, it is also true that you don't need an excessive amount of presents and food to enjoy Christmas.

I do not want the hobbits to look back and see our first Christmas alone as a memory of sadness and misery, so I have to find a way to make it equally as special for them.

When I think back about what made my Christmas' special as a child it is the memories rather than the presents.

...The burnt hoof marks in the carpet proving that the reindeers had visited, the lines in the snow where the sledge had been and the personal notes from Santa.

So I am looking for my Christmas spirit in things that we do, rather than things that I buy. The hobbits and I will remember this Christmas as a time when we had a chance to play all day on new toys, that we went to the local pantomime and walked round to see all the decorations outside the houses.

It is up to me to make it special and make sure the hobbits enjoy and remember this year with affection when they look back years from now.

That our first Christmas on our own was the first of many fantastic Christmas' to come.