"Paddington found that Christmas took a long time to come. Each morning, when he hurried downstairs, he crossed the date off the calendar, but the more days he crossed off the farther away it seemed...
The excitement in the Browns' house mounted, until it reached fever pitch a few days before Christmas, when Jonathan and Judy arrived home for the holidays. But if the days leading up to Christmas were busy and exciting, they were nothing compared with Christmas Day itself...
The Browns were up early on Christmas morning-- much earlier than they had intended. It all started when Paddington woke to find a large pillow-case at the bottom of his bed. His eyes nearly popped out with astonishment when he switched his torch on, for it was bulging with parcels, and it certainly hadn't been there when he'd gone to bed on Christmas Eve...
When he made his way up to bed later that evening, his mind was in such a whirl, and he was so full of good things, he could hardly climb the stairs- let alone think about anything. He wasn't quite sure which he had enjoyed the most. The presents, the Christmas dinner, the games, or the tea- with the special marmalade-layer birthday cake Mrs. Bird had made in his honour. Pausing on the corner half way up, he decided he had enjoyed giving his own presents best of all."
- an excerpt from More About Paddington by Michael Bond -
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A collection of my Christmas favorites...
Festive Things to Watch:
♥ Our List of Favorite Christmas Movies ♥
🎄Home Alone
🎄Home Alone 2
🎄Home Alone 3
🎄Home Alone 4
🎄The Santa Clause
🎄The Santa Clause 2
🎄The Santa Clause 3
🎄Eloise at Christmastime
🎄Christmas with the Kranks
🎄To Grandmother's House We Go (with the Olsen twins)
🎄How the Grinch Stole Christmas (with Jim Carrey)
🎄Holiday in Handcuffs
♥ Our List of Runners-Up Favorites ♥
🎄The Christmas Card
🎄The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
🎄The Christmas Gift (with John Denver)
🎄Samantha: An American Girl Holiday
🎄A Heartland Christmas
🎄Mandie and the Forgotten Christmas
🎄Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
🎄Christmas Vacation
♥ Our List of Favorite Non-Christmasy Movies that Still Feel Very Festive ♥
❄️Snow Day (kinda cringey but nostalgic)
❄️The Sound of Music (this time of year calls for musicals)
❄️Newsies: The Broadway Musical
❄️Little Women (1994)
❄️Harry Potter movies (especially the first one)
❄️The Hobbit trilogy
❄️The Lord of the Rings trilogy
❄️Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
♥ Our Favorite Festive TV Shows & Specials ♥
🎄Call the Midwife: Each season begins with a Christmas special, and they are just that...very, very special. I adore them all!
🎄The Middle: Each season has a Christmas episode. And each one is hilarious, heartwarming, and such fun!
🎄Downton Abbey: I love the Christmas special from season 2. The most memorable moment, of course, is when Mary finally accepts Matthew's proposal!
🎄7th Heaven: The Christmas episode in season 3 is one of my absolute favorites of all time! I must watch it every year! There are a couple more in the later seasons, but Season 3's episode has my heart.
🎄Agatha Raisin: The Christmas episode on this show is downright crazy, but it's all done in true Agatha Raisin fashion. And I just think it's so much fun!
🎄Gilmore Girls: I will mention the Gilmore Girls' Christmas episodes from seasons 1 and 7. However, I must say that they don't feel particularly Christmasy to me. But I'm including them, because I do love the show...I must say that I do really wish they had more truly holiday-themed episodes.
Festive Things to Listen To:
Seth MacFarlane's Christmas albums: I'm absolutely loving these this year...it's pretty much the only Christmas music I'm listening to. I'm just really loving them! The songs are some of my most favorites, too....and they all just feel so Christmasy and nostalgic and wonderful!
I'm rather particular about the kind of Christmas music I like. I've learned that I prefer music that feels super nostalgic and am usually not a fan of the more modern stuff and especially the modern Christmas songs that singers come out with. They don't feel Christmasy to me at all and are just really missing that "feel" that festive songs should have in my opinion. (For example, Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You". If I hear that one more time, I feel like my ears will fall off!)
So, with that said, Seth MacFarlane's albums hit the target perfectly. I also adore Andy Williams, Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Burl Ives' Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer soundtrack, The Carpenters, Johnny Mathis, Josh Groban, and Michael Bublé.
I'm also a lover of Celtic Christmas music...obviously. Celtic music is where my heart lies. Some of my favorites are Orla Fallon, Celtic Thunder, Emmet Cahill, and Celtic Woman. (I'm still dreaming of a Christmas album from The High Kings one day!) And in recent years, I've learned that I absolutely love instrumental music. Like, I just cannot get enough of it. My two favorites for Christmas are: An Irish Country Christmas and the Fiddlers' Christmas. We play these two CDs all the time! Finally, I adore soundtracks any time of year, but at Christmas, there are a few that I especially enjoy. The top one being the Home Alone soundtrack. It's nearly all instrumental and it's all remarkably glorious! It sounds like pure heavenly bliss!
Festive Things to Read (& Festive Cookbooks):
❤️Christmas From the Heart of the Home by Susan Branch
💚Christmas Teas of Comfort and Joy by Emilie Barnes
❤️Christmas Joy by Susan Branch
💚Shepherds Abiding by Jan Karon
❤️A Cross-Country Christmas by Courtney Walsh
💚Merry Ex-Mas by Courtney Walsh
❤️A Match Made at Christmas by Courtney Walsh
💚Finding Father Christmas by Robin Jones Gunn
❤️Engaging Father Christmas by Robin Jones Gunn
💚Kissing Father Christmas by Robin Jones Gunn
❤️Any Gooseberry Patch Christmas cookbooks
💚Any Taste of Home Christmas cookbooks
❤️An Old-Fashioned Christmas by Ellen Stimson
💚A Quilter's Christmas Cookbook
Festive Things to Do (Our Favorite Traditions):
✨ Take our favorite hot drink in a travel cup and drive around looking at Christmas lights.
✨Have a big cookie/treat baking day and make baskets or boxes to take to our neighbor and friends.
✨Have homemade pizza on Christmas Eve whilst watching movies.
✨We don't purchase a ton of new Christmas decorations each year, because we love using the ones we've had for literally decades. We love a nostalgic, traditional, memory-filled Christmas opposed to an on-trend, aesthetic Christmas, so we don't change our entire Christmas decorations out each year. But we do enjoy adding a few things to our collection each year and allowing it to slowly grow.
✨And we do always have a tradition of getting a few treats each December. We each get a new Christmas mug; a new Christmas ornament for our tree; and in the last couple years, we've loved getting a light up or musical gingerbread house to display. Those three little treats really make the season extra special, and we love adding them to our collections each year.
✨Add some handmade decorations to our home each Christmas/winter.
✨New Christmas sweatshirt to wear on Christmas Day...we prefer casual, comfy and cozy over being dressed up.
✨New matching Christmas pajamas to wear on Christmas Eve...and matching fuzzy socks, too.
✨Turkey dinner with all the sides on Christmas Day with a special dessert.
What are your Christmas favorites, dear readers?