It's Christmas!!!

December the first is here.  The advent calendars have started their chocolate flavoured countdown to the big day and the anticipation of things to come is palpable.  This year we fully intend to celebrate the whole of December to create magic moments with our family to prevent the feeling of it all being over too quickly.  There are so many recipes I want to cook and so many craft activities I want to do, I am spreading everything out across the month.  Each of the family has been allocated their own special day where they get to organise a pre-Christmas day, deciding on a theme including what we'll eat and what we'll do to celebrate the festive season.  I'm not sure what I'm letting myself in for, especially when it's Freddy's turn to pick the theme for the day, but it going to be such fun finding out.

I will be writing about what we get up to, what we cook and where we go, sharing some hints and tips along the way.

Today we went to Cadbury World to review their Christmas weekends (a write up will follow shortly).  Afterwards, on the way home we went to Ikea in Wednesbury for a bite to eat, and we were absolutely blown away by our visit!  If you are anywhere near an Ikea, it is well worth a trip this Christmas!

As we arrived we saw that they were starting their Christmas celebrations.  Ikea Family Members (which is a loyalty scheme completely free to join) can take their children to visit Santa every weekend between 10.30 and 4.30 for free.  He was housed in one of the room displays which had been decorated with a tree and lights.  A friendly elf greeted everyone and chatted to the kids while we waited to see Santa.  Santa himself was an absolute delight.  He was friendly, engaging, interested in the children and spoke to them all in turn.  He had a real beard too which I always thinks adds to the magic!  Each of my children including Ella were given a cuddly toy which was such a wonderful gesture.  He was the best Santa I think I've ever seen and the fact that it was free is just amazing!

The soft toys that the children received from Santa are part of the Cirkus range which cost £4 each and are so beautifully designed.  They are lovely animals dressed as circus performers. This range is just one of the many ranges of toys that Ikea sell.  They also stock children's books.  Plus for every soft toy or book sold before the 23rd December, Ikea are donating a Euro to the 'Soft Toys for Education' campaign.  It's lovely to buy a gift that will help another child.  I think it is a great way to donate something to charity.  The Ikea children's department was full of great and inspiring ideas for presents for the little ones.  We got Freddy a gorgeous traditional wooden toy which he'll find under the tree on Christmas morning.

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The restaurant was offering up some seasonal yummies including their kid's organic moose pasta with cheesy tomato sauce which also includes a free portion of fruit for just 99p.  They had a vegetarian spinach, chestnut and dolcelatte pie too.  I love that they cater for veggies and it is such good value.

Ikea were selling their Christmas trees outside the main store today.  The fresh, green, lush, pine scented Nordmann Fir trees looked wonderful.  You could pick your own and the staff were more than helpful letting you unwrap them to find the perfect shape and size tree.  Best of all though, you buy the tree for £25 and receive a £20 voucher to use in the New Year.  The voucher has no minimum spend and is valid until February 3rd.  This offer is on again next Saturday 8th December.  It is a fabulous deal.  We chose the tree that will be spending the next month gracing our living room in all its festive splendour.

Today was a wonderful start to our December celebrations.  Our brilliant Ikea trip was completely unexpected and we had a brilliant experience.  I would definitely recommend it to anyone this Christmas!