Cosy Christmas competition
How to win at the festive season, plus a round up of the year
Drink a lot of tea - bonus points if it’s cosy.
Wear thick scarves and handwarmers at all times - bonus points if you take a photo of your hands in said handwarmers clutching a mug; triple points if it’s a mug of cosy tea.
Walk. A lot. All the time. Bonus points for photos of your winter boots in fallen leaves/snow; triple points if you’re wearing handwarmers.
It’s harder than you’d think to take a photo like this… Stick candles everywhere. A point for every room lit solely by candlelight; double points if you manage to do some candlelit journaling and can see what you’re writing; triple points if it’s in a beautiful handmade journal; quadruple points if you’re wearing the inevitable handwarmers and a surprise bonus 30 points if you have a mug of cosy tea by your side; 1000 more points if it’s a steaming cuppa.
If you can do all this and put up a tree and decorate it tastefully, place all your gifts (either lovingly handmade or purchased from local artisans on the bustling High Street) around the base, make your own wreath for the door and soup for the freezer (cosy soup!) and still do all the other crap we have to do to stay alive AND you’re in bed in your PJs by 8.30pm then…I dunno, you win?
Triggered? Moi?!
Maybe just a little, but honestly, come on. I’ve seen so many lists posted in Notes of all the ways people are ‘slowing down’ that all sound like what I aspire to on a busy day, if that’s you slowing down, what the heck does your life look like normally?!
And yep - the biggest reason I’m triggered is precisely because life doesn’t feel slow or cosy or nourishing - to me, not right now. You got me!
Side trail to consider tea, tradition, vocabulary - and privilege
To be fair, I’m more baffled by the cosy tea thing than I am grumpy, so please don’t hate me for it. When did this particular beverage become cosy? Is it a big Christmassy winter thing the other side of the pond? I know tea is a big thing in Germany, as a way to nurture yourself if you’re feeling under the weather…so I asked our favourite AI friend and it said…
I can see how just because tea is a normal part of any average day here in the UK, we can forget to slow down and savour the moment. So it’s not so much about the beverage as it is about the stopping - but maybe it could have a different adjective, for some variation? Please? Perhaps sometimes it could be nourishing, calming, soothing, warming…?
Did I mention privilege? Ah, yes…I’m not exactly on the sharp edge of anything, tucked away in my little studio at home, but I know just from the towering heaps of food we’re building in the supermarket food bank bins that need refilling every day - there are too many people, even in this very same little nondescript town, who are living a life that is the antithesis of cosy. So there’s that.
I could now tell you about my total lack of preparation and cosiness, but that’s almost as bad - a kind of reverse virtue signalling. Not quite a humble brag, because there’s not much to brag about. And anyway, it’s not even true. I have prepared for Christmas.
I made some trees…
You can find my mini course on how to make trees almost exactly like this here (the ones in the course are a bit more floofy and textural, but the techniques are similar) - last chance before I take it down at the end of the season.
Great escape
My main Christmas prep this year has been booking an escape. Out of the country. Just me and him, in a tiny hideaway in the middle of nowhere (criteria: not here, preferably with a hot tub). OK, you got me. That is a brag right there. And yes, I can see how sharply this clashes with everything I’ve just said about poverty above. Nobody said this was easy.
But here’s the thing: when asked what we’re doing at Christmas and confessing* we’re escaping the whole thing, there hasn’t been one single person who’s said, “Oh, that’s a shame - not being with family and friends.” Everyone we’ve told has said they’d love to do the same, and could they please come too - which is sweet, but would entirely defeat the purpose of it being a retreat for two. It’s also a bit of an indication of just how mad it all is that so many of us want to escape, isn’t it? Also, *confessing? I’m not even Catholic yet the guilt is still there…
So if you’re someone who genuinely enjoys it all - cosy Christmas tea and the whole shebang - please, go for it and enjoy, hugely. I’m really not a bah-humbug person: I’m a sucker for anything involving marzipan, I love a twinkly fairy light, and I will always choose a real Christmas tree. But I’m also very, very tired.
Highlights of the year?
Finishing Swirls. It was a biggy but it was lovely to finally get it up and running again. I’m running it again starting in January and the wait list for an earlybird discount is open now.
Exhibitions. I’ve actually made it out of my bunker this year and seen some fabulous things, mostly in London but one favourite I visited was closer to home. I also helped create and participate in a little exhibition very close to home (two minutes up the road to be exact) and agreed to do it all over again in 2026.
Learning more about ADHD, specifically, the impact it has on my creativity. I’ve had a lifetime’s experience of living with it, but not so much understanding it. Sure, I have all the books. But have I read them all, cover to cover? Don’t be silly. So it’s been good to spend some time getting under the hood, so to speak. But it’s taken significant chunks of time out of my weeks this autumn. That in itself was curious - finally getting help and spending time understanding my brain (very good thing) has taken time away from doing the things that my brain makes it hard to get started on anyway (not such a good thing).
Making things. That said, I have enjoyed getting back into making some stuff for me, this year - not just for teaching others. I’ll be hitting the ground running in the new year as the exhibition looms, but I’ve been making a start by tackling some things that’ve sat around for far too long already, such as the background painting for these pieces. It’s one piece that’s prob going to be chopped into two ✂️✂️✂️ like this:
Do I have plans for 2026? Of course! Some quite ambitious, too. Chances of any of them coming to fruition? Middling. Some will, some won’t, and that’s OK. The fun is in finding out what new diversions will come along to make my path from one end of the year to the other as wiggly as ever!
What have you enjoyed this year - and what are you looking forward to for the next?
So that’s me
Tired, still wired, but signing off for this year. I’ll be back in January with my annual update of thoughts around planners and notebooks…
Until then, THANK YOU for reading (this turned into a bit of an epic post, how did that happen? was it the rant? oops, sorry…) and I do hope you have a lovely festive break - however that looks for you!
If you’d like to support me a little more, you can always buy me a coffee - that’d be more than lovely too 😊
Love love love this post! Wishing you every blessing at Christmas 🎄
Love your trees! Happy new year; hope the getaway was restful!