Day 3 of Blogmas - All about Santa!

Today marks my third day of 12 days of Blogmas! I can't believe that the year is drawing to a close. I hope you've been enjoying the Blogmas posts so far. In case, you missed yesterday's post click here to read about Christmas traditions and memories. To make sure you don't miss a post, like the blog on Facebook.

In celebration of the festive period I decided to dedicate this post to a special man; a man that many children love at this time of year. Santa, St Nick, St Nicholas, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle, whatever you wish to call him. Starting with 10 interesting facts about him:

• The Guinness World Record for the largest gathering of Santa Clauses is held by Thrissur, Kerala, India, where on 27th December 2014, 18115 Santas came.
• Children have long sent Santa letter, which typically contain wishlists. Many postal services allow kids to send letters to Santa. These letters might be answered by postal workers and/or volunteers.
• Every country has different traditions, I mean every family tends to be slightly different. For example, America and Canada leave Santa milk and a plate of cookies on Christmas Eve. However, Britain and Australia tend to leave sherry or beer with mince pies.
• His bones leak miracle juice.
• Department store Santa is a 120 year old tradition
• The Santa suit originates from Coca-Cola. In 1931, they issued a massive ad campaign that feature Santa in coke's red and white colours. Since then, it's been hard to imagine him anything else
• Santa was a bachelor until the late 1800s.
• Thomas Nast, famous newspaper artist found inspiration for his extremely popular painting of today's Santa from Clement C. Moore's world famous poem, The Night Before Christmas ("A Visit from St. Nicholas"). Nast was the first person to paint the first definitive portrait of our present day Santa in 1870.
• His fame spread rapidly during Middle Ages and thousands of churches that are dedicated to him.
• In China, he's called Shengdan Laoren.

Santa plays a big part in growing up for children. It is the start of imagination alongside fairy-godmothers and the tooth fairy! I was 11 when I stopped believing he existed; just before going to high school. It is embarrassing in a way, but demonstrates how lucky I was as a child. I managed to believe despite friends admitting they'd seen their parents at the end of their beds etc.

How old were you when you discovered Santa wasn't real? I hope I didn't ruin it for you with this post!

Day 2 of Blogmas - Christmas Memories and Traditions

Today marks day 2 of my 12 days of Blogmas posts, and hope you are enjoying it. Incase you missed yesterday's post, click here. It discussed my wishlist for Christmas 2016.

Unfortunately due to moving and a lot of boxes still being unpacked, in the spare room, I couldn't find any old pictures of me celebrating Christmas, which I would have loved to share. However if I do, I will attach some to the post before Blogmas is over!

For this post, I wanted to discuss traditions and memories.

I can't think of a specific or one "fantastic" memory of Christmas. I just remember my favourite Christmasses having more people around. We used to have my Gran around, and I'm sure whether it was Christmas or during the new year, but we sometimes had my Mum's friends around. I think a Christmas with more people is somehow more fun.

That being said, it is usually a Christmas of me, my Mum, Dad and the dogs. I love it being close-knit with the two people who love me most. I still feel like a big kid who expects her presents in her stocking; to be bought an advent calendar every year from my mum and a yearly argument or three.

No matter what we're doing, Mum's cooking is always amazing. I'm not a huge fan of roast dinners but love the food at Christmas  I usually have turkey, gravy, pigs in blankets, mash and anything else I might have specifically asked for. Mum is like the food Santa when Christmas is involved! We ask, she gets. Throughout the day I laze infront of the telly like many might do, use or try my new gifts and stuff my face with chocolate and treats until I can eat no more.

The only specific memory I remember as a child is being asked what I thought of my presents, and saying to my mum one year: "Everything is perfect, but wish Santa hadn't bothered getting that!" and pointed to some stuffed doll thing. Years later, I still cringe at being so spoilt and ungrateful.

What are you Christmas memories and traditions? It's always fun to hear how people's Christmases vary.