Happy Christmas Eve World!

Happy Christmas Eve! And look! there's a special visitor coming through this door! Yes! It's the Mayor of somewhere and a small unenthused/confused child! Hurray! Also a random man in red with a big white beard.
Because after all there's only one more sleep 'til Chriiiistmaaaaaas...

YAY!

Happy 19th Day of Advent

Happy 17th December

Click on the Church door to hear a wonderful childhood classic :)

Yay! I hope this one has a special place in your heart as well as mine :)

I'm dreaming of Day 16! :D

Hurray! Also, it's completely true... despite the difficutl travel implications....

Day 14!

Happy day 14!

This is me and a few friends (Alberto, Sam and Heather! Hi!) a few years ago performing in Leeds. It was a day of complete Christmas Joy!

Day 13!

Day 13.

I couldn't find a proper official video if this on youtube, so here is a sustitute. Made my someone with a lot of time, and cabling on their hands....

Day 11 is pretty exciting!!

This is not a...conventional Christmas song. But, give it a chance, it is awesome. And this video is the best version, and best visual attached to this version I've found.

Hurray! Wasn't that fun? I think it's pretty amazing! And that man is so expressive and fun to watch!

Festive love! x

Day 10 is a beautiful day. Sit some where quiet and calm, and enjoy.

Aaahhh.... :)

Day 9!

I think this calendar malarky is going pretty well. If you're reading this you're still here! Which is a good sign all round.

Open the Door to reveal the wonder! (Click on it!

Hurrah! I want some of that punch.... preferably hot though.

Day 8 of Advent

Hope you enjoyed Day 8. I know that is a lot of people's favourite song. It's the time of year where I hope everyone's Christmas shopping is going well. Only a couple of weeks to go now! I like caramel based chocolates. So you know. x

Your 6th Installment of Advent Joy

Giddy up! Let's go! Day 6!

I hope this song makes you as happy as it does me. :)
Merry Yule!

What's behind the 5th Door??

 On Day Five, they saw something bright in the distance....

I hope you enjoyed the corny corny cheesy cheese. And although I don't *particularly* want to encourage giant multinationals, this has become such an iconic thing.
So hurray hurray! x

Day 4 of Fabulous Advent Calendar of Festive Wonder

Happy 4th Day of Advent: open the classier and beautiful door below!

This track combines my love of Christmas with my love of where I am from (i.e. Sussex), traditional music, choral singing and beautiful historical places. Hurrah! How could you lose.

I hope you enjoyed it.

Festive Love. x

Helena's Beautiful Festive Advent Calendar of Joy

So for the first few days of Advent I had neither calendar or candle! So I decided to mark these days in my own way, by making a facebook advent calendar linking to Christmas themed things.

Today I got a real chocolate advent calendar, and behind doors 1, 2 and 3, where flighteningly mishapen almost-characters. One may have been a snowman, before his head was melted. Another may have been Santa. With neurofibromatosis. The Elephant Santa.

So I've decided this way is better, and to make it last longer and put it all in the same place, in blog form.

Just so you know- the first day's delightful surprise does not indicate that all the other days will follow in the same manner.... So don't be put off.

1st December 2011

Open the first door!! (go on, click on it.)

Wooo... If all went correctly in internet there should have been some rocking around of Christmas trees, a cameo of Rolf Harris and Santa bursting out of a massive present with a saxophone?

Excellent.

2nd December 2011

(you may want to bing the bell before you open this door)

Hurray!!

3rd December 2011

Hurrah! This was a bit of a find. It is quite hard to find people of this period with videos on youtube when looking for something specific- i.e. Christmas music, in a particular film or whatever.

Check back soon to open the next doors :D

Festive love xx

Happy Winterfest! Dealing positively with the inevitable disappointments of Christmas

*WARNING* This is one of the sappiest posts I have ever written. I make no apologies however, as it is genuinely how I feel. But if you don't appreciate talking about festive joy and love here are some comedy ideas of the day I was kidnapped by Lesbian Pirates From Outer Space and The Baby-Safe Ball.


 Since I was very little, Christmas has been the most EXCITING, beautiful, joyful and happy experience of my year. I used to sing Christmas carols from July- any time after my birthday was fair gain for Christmas anticipation. It seems to me, a time of year where the whole object is to make each other happy, spend time together, make everything beautiful with lots of decoration, make nice music, eat loads of nice things, and a time where we were closer to magic than any other time. It was the most exciting and wonderful time in the world.

Here is a case in point. This is a happy little me, dressed up for the School Christmas Fair- excited pre winning a prize for the costume and being in the paper with the other winners and Father Christmas! We all knew Father Christmas was really Bill the school caretaker in a big fake beard really, but it was great in all ways :)
I did not know what wonders were to come!

 

Aaaahhh those Halcyon days...

However. As you grow up Christmas day becomes more and more of a disappointment every year. Even with my "being in Christmas" trick of lying with my head under the Christmas tree, looking up through the lights and decoration, which I discovered as a teenager when i wanted to try to capture some magic. And yes I still do this.

It is just another day. Especially in my house, were due to a certain relative being there we cannot do what we want with it, and enjoy our family Christmas which means so much to me. In stead we sit around in silence, being told we're doing everything wrong. 

This makes me immensely sad, because I still love Christmas and all that goes with it. Everything I've written after this I have deleted and rewritten. I still don't know how to put it, other than our Christmas has been stolen, unappreciatively, for the sake of being "polite". So I'll move on.

As really Christmas is one single day, there is so much pressure to have an *AMAZING* day, which will rarely ever happen as an adult. So my way of dealing with this is to think of Christmas as a whole season. A period of approximately a month in which we can celebrate. Of course the presents and big meal and stuff will happen on the 25th, but the parties and celebrations and fun, singing, even other Christmassy meals, social gatherings etc can bring joy and love to people any time around this time of year, and make the Christmas experience longer and fuller.

This video is pretty much the summation of my Christmas feelings. Muppets Christmas Carol is one of my favourite films, and is wonderfully touching and inciteful, and this is a brilliant number. But it doesn't have to be just for a single day.

So basically I am encouraging you, if you have lost the joy of Christmas a little, to think of it as a season, a few weeks, in which to spread joy, to be generous, to spend time with friends and family, buy a Big Issue, make interesting cakes for work, partake in a charity event, make things around you beautiful. wish strangers a happy Christmas, smile at people as you pass them in the street, sing and be merry.

These things will brighten many more days than your own.

It is the summer of the soul in December. In all the places you find love it feels like Christmas.

xxx