I've NEVER been a Christmas person. It hasn't been a holiday worth celebrating and enjoying, but for the past few years I've allowed myself to get into it a little bit. I don't know if it was just determination to hate the entire holidays (well, I still believe it has lost all its value as an opportunity to spend time with your family) but being surrounded by people who actually enjoy it and get all excited when they get to decorate their houses and get a tree must've rubbed off on me a little.


And the fact that my other half is quite into it has definitely affected it all. Now that we have our own flat, he's really been looking forward to having our very own tree and decorations. We actually went to B&Q a few weeks ago just to get decorations and lights ready, even though we only got the tree a few nights ago.



I must admit, it gives the flat a special atmosphere. I think I will miss it when it's gone! Our Christmas plans are quite open still, I'm working over the holidays apart from Christmas day so I believe we will just get together with the family and relax.

The one thing that always gives me a bit of stress is the whole deal with presents. I'm really not a present person (I always tell people not to get me anything, but they never listen!) so I rarely buy presents for anyone unless I actually see something that feels like the perfect thing to give. I don't want to buy stuff just for the sake of it, it completely goes against my values. 



I'm actually really pleased with the lights I got for the windows. They look good enough to keep on the wall all year round really, they're not exactly screaming "Christmas" all over the place. :)

Now that I'm back to being a redhead, I've done so much research about how to keep my colour last. The few boxes of Garnier Olia I bought washed straight off, so I had to result to buying "specialist" hair colour from Special Effects. It was a very messy process and the colour has stained my finger nails, arms and neck, but oh my the end result is stunning! It's just the perfect mixture of pink and red, couldn't get such a pretty result with high street colours! And the one bottle I got will last me for ages, I only used about a 1/4 of it this time (mixed into some conditioner). Special Effects is a vegetarian colour brand, they use no peroxide or other nasty chemicals so it's perfectly fine to leave the colour in for several hours. Some people have said that they actually wrap it all up in cling film and a towel and have it in their hair overnight! My hair feels really healthy despite the colour being very harsh, couldn't get the same feeling with normal hair colours.

I think I've found the colour I've been searching for all these years! ♥

I hope you've all had a lovely day today (and yesterday for everyone outside the UK)!

We definitely had quite a different Christmas to what I'm used to. While I'm used to opening presents on Christmas day instead of Christmas eve, the way the rest of the day went was such a nice change to previous years!

I didn't ask for anything (like I haven't done for years now), my other half insisted on getting me little bits and pieces and my brother sent me two presents a few weeks ago as well. I got a foam roller and a handheld massager from my other half and these two babies from my brother! He just knows me way too well. ♥ WoW Monopoly and the Grumpy Cat book, they just scream "NERD!!" to me! :D Put a smile on my face for sure.

And can't wait to be able to test my foam roller as well, I've already looked up some exercise videos on Youtube and I'm just waiting to get half an hour to myself this week so I can start rolling. :)


I tried so hard to eat as little as possible during the morning as I knew we'd be eating loads during dinner, but of course I couldn't resist the chocolates and crisps we had in the kitchen. I do think I was quite good compared to last year, but still could've kept my hands off the stuff! I'm not feeling too bad about it as my overall diet is in check, it's OK to enjoy some junk every now and then. ;)

It hit me as well that it's exactly two years since I started losing weight. If I didn't hit my back and gain all the weight I had lost after the Christmas of 2011, I'd be so skinny and fit by now. Oh well, life's a bitch.



We went for something completely different today and I loved it! We usually have the traditional roast dinner (or if I'm home, the Finnish Christmas meal), but we all wanted to avoid all the hassle and stress it brings and went for Indian! Our local Indian restaurant had a 5-course meal for £17.95 offer and oh my gosh was it worth it!

The meal included a starter, curry, rice, bread and a side. It was a lot of food and none of us actually managed to finish everything! When we order in we never have the starter and we just split one naan bread, now we had one each and we suffered! :D It was so incredibly delicious though, I had a sag roll for starter and chom chom chicken with pilau rice and a peshwari naan as my main. I decided not to order a side as I knew I couldn't finish it at all, so I just ended up pincing a few potatoes from the sag aloo my other half ordered.



It was such a relaxing meal, we had a great time and just talked. It's nice to be able to just sit down and not worry about cooking and clearing up, made us feel like we weren't in a rush at all because there was someone else looking after it all.

Our day did also include visiting my other half's grandparents after dinner, so it's been a very low key Christmas! Exactly what I wanted as I'm not too big on Christmas.

And of course we did need to whip out the Monopoly tonight, would've been a crime not to! Even though three out of people around the game board did struggle a bit with the property names and chance / treasure chest cards, it was just like normal Monopoly. We must've spent at least a good two hours playing, just having a laugh and trying to haggle our way out of deals. ;)



I think the dogs do sum up how we were all feeling by 11pm, it's been a day full of food and laughter and it has worn everyone out pretty well. :) Good night!