I have always loved Christmas and everything about the build-up during December: Christmas songs; carol services; mince pies; decorations and festive films. I am lucky that Sam loves it as much as I do too. For someone who is generally a bit of a grumpy old man (well before he should be as he is only 33!) most of the time he is Christmas Mad and will have had his Christmas CD in the car today and we are already planning when he will be watching The Snowman and The Snowman and The Snow Dog!
One extra thing that I am more excited about than usual this year thanks to my now well-documented (on this blog anyway!) chocolate addiction is the daily treats my advent calendars will provide. Yes, you heard me correctly. Calendars plural. As I said in a previous post, I purchased our advent calendars at the beginning of November. Instead of the standard Cadbury’s Dairy Milk one we usually go for I splashed out on a flipping £5 Lindt one in a moment of weakness. The worst part – I only got the Dairy Milk one for Sam! Then last weekend my Mum gave me another advent calendar for each of us – a family traditional that unfortunately lapsed last year, hence me buying my own this year. Then this morning Sam reached to the top of the wardrobe and produced a third luxurious Lindt Lindor Balls calendar for me – what a lovely surprise! He told me Santa must have left it there for me…extra points for the festive feeling that sweet statement created.
So I now have three pieces of chocolate to enjoy each day. I hope it means I will be able to resist the temptation to each any more chocolate for the rest of December….starting from tomorrow. I may have eaten four Celebrations today (two Maltesers and two Galaxy Caramel ones, my faves) oops. In my defence I haven’t opened my advent calendars yet so it was the thought of them that drove me to break my resolve at work today as the tub was passed ’round.
We’re going to put the tree up tonight too. We were going to get a real one this year but I am too impatient to decorate to wait until the weekend so we are going to use our big artificial one instead. I can’t wait – we’ll either put a Christmassy film or CD on whilst we decorate and try to keep the cats from climbing the tree/destroying the baubles.
In bump-related news: it does seem to be having growth spurts every few days where it’ll suddenly appear bigger. I am wearing the same skirt today that I had on in a very early “bumpie” I posted on here and the difference is clear to see – took a look below! The two photos on the left were taken at 16 weeks, the one on the right at 25 weeks.
I also had my 24 week Midwife appointment yesterday. Everything is fine and we got to hear the baby’s heartbeat again which was an amazing as the first time we heard it. They weighed me, I have put on 4kg so far which they say is normal and to be expected. It is a bit scary to think that I’m expected to have gained 10-15kg by the time I am full term! The one thing I forgot to ask for at the time was my MAT B1 form, you need to give it to your employer when you are 25 weeks pregnant/15 weeks from your estimated due date for them to fully process your maternity leave and pay requests. Luckily the midwife has dropped it through the letterbox today so I can give a copy to HR tomorrow to finalise all of the official paperwork. I think the next 15 weeks is going to fly by, especially since I only have 10 weeks left at work, yay!
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