I am a sucker for Christmas traditions and something I have been doing for many years now is arranging Christmas meals throughout the festive season with friends and family. We will have family come to ours for a Christmas style dinner with all the trimmings, whilst with friends, we pick our favourite Christmas menus and book somewhere to go for a meal together. It's a nice way to see out the year with a festive celebration, spending time with those who have been a big part of my life throughout the year.

Last year everyone told me not to worry about Christmas dinner, after all, I had a newborn and was still recovering from my planned caesarean the month before. Although I was tempted to let someone else take the reins, I do enjoy cooking and love making Christmas dinner a big festive celebration with all the trimmings, too. I did, however, do things a little differently, and as a result, I picked up a few tricks in getting Christmas dinner done in a much easier, and also a little more cost-effective way.



001. USE THOSE POINTS WISELY!
Mostly, we shop at Tesco, but we often shop at Morrisons for little bits too and have loyalty cards for both. As we shop at Morrisons less often, we don't receive as many vouchers for Morrisons, around £30 at most throughout the year, but the vouchers we do get, I put aside ready to use for our Christmas food shop order (more on that later!). Tesco, on the other hand, is somewhere we get a good amount of vouchers from and I usually have around £80-100 in Tesco vouchers by the time Christmas comes around.

This means that I don't have to worry about our food shopping budget in December; I always spend more in December, particularly closer to Christmas week, as I am often cooking for more people, treat us to more seasonal treat food and like to make sure we're stocked up on all the Christmas snacks and drinks for visitors, last-minute Christmas gifts in the form of boxes of biscuits or chocolates, or nights when we just want to crash out in front of a cheesy Christmas movie and eat Christmas food.

002. BOOK YOUR ONLINE CHRISTMAS FOOD SHOP DELIVERY SLOT ASAP
If you do your weekly food shop online, you may already know that supermarkets like to put their Christmas delivery dates out quite early, especially as they book up fast. If you don't order your food shop online, it's worth making an account with your chosen supermarket so that you can reserve a slot, just in case you need it - you may even find it makes the run-up to Christmas easier, as you have the option there to have your Christmas food shop delivered.

When Tesco release their Christmas delivery slots I pick my date and time, pop a couple of things in my basket and check out; it's not the food shop I'll get delivered on the day (and no payment is taken, as payments are only deducted from your bank when your order has been delivered), but it means that slot is mine and sorted ready for me to make changes closer to the time, popping all the things we do need into my basket before saving the changes ready for delivery. No worrying about getting those last little bits from the shop on time and no panicking when you see all the delivery slots booked and taken if you already have yours sorted!

003. PLAN YOUR CHRISTMAS MEALS IN ADVANCE
I like to sit down at least a month in advance armed with my laptop, cookbooks, Christmas magazines and a pen and paper and get everything properly written down. Any Christmas meals we're doing throughout December for friends and family, our food plans for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day food from breakfast right through to Christmas dinner and each individual course, as well as Boxing Day, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.

Knowing exactly what I will be cooking, each individual ingredient that we need and when we need it for makes a huge difference for me. It means I can enjoy our festive meals with those we love, without worrying about what to cook and if we have the right ingredients in.

004. DON'T BE AFRAID TO TRY READY PREPARED FOOD
Before 2018, I had always done Christmas dinner from scratch. I think it's fair to say a lot of people really take pride in doing Christmas dinner, as for many, it can be the biggest 'occasion' family meal of the year. Except, last year, I had a newborn, and I didn't want to spend my entire day in the kitchen, so instead I took a risk and did a Morrisons 'food to order' shop, with our entire Christmas Day meal from starter to dessert, ready prepped.

It was a risk worth taking and everything was delicious, it took a lot of stress out of the day and we had very little to do ourselves. We set reminders on Alexa for each stage of the cooking process and even better, dinner was on time, for the first time ever! I can't wait to do the same again this year and enjoy a stress-free Christmas dinner!

005. GET YOUR TIMINGS RIGHT
If there's one thing that will definitely make sure your Christmas dinner is stress-free, it's getting your timings right. I like to stick a piece of paper on the fridge with the timings for each individual component of the meal, with the time they should go in the oven, the time they should be turned over if need be, and the time they need to come out of the oven. I then also set reminders on Alexa, but if you don't have an Alexa, you can easily manage by writing the times down or setting alarms on your phone.

Last year was the first year I wrote down all the timings individually like that, and it was the first time Christmas day dinner went without a hitch!

I can't wait to tuck into all our festive meals again this year, what will you be having for Christmas dinner?

Whilst we celebrate the festive season, please consider donating to your local food banks for those who will go without or with very little this Christmas. You can find out more about what to donate with my Reverse Advent Calendar feature.

This year I want to share something with you that not only will I be doing for the first time this year myself, but an initiative I think is incredibly important for communities to get involved in and something that, although I wish people didn't need, could really make a change to someone's Christmas this year. I am of course talking about taking part in the Reverse Advent Calendar.

After spending a lot of time searching for the perfect box to keep everything in, as we'd long since chucked the boxes I used for Willow and I hadn't managed to find anything on the high-street, so I eventually turned to eBay where I picked up a 'nappy caddy' for £6.99 with free delivery. When it arrived it wasn't quite as big as the pictures on eBay suggest, but plenty big enough for our needs. It comes with two velcro dividers that you can use to make compartments and the exterior has individually pocketed compartments too, so there really is a lot of storage in this budget-friendly organiser! Let's delve in, shall we?

I adore Christmas Eve and like to make it as magical as possible. Even before I had my own family, Christmas Eve was always something special in the build-up to Christmas Day, but now I do have children of my own, it's even more important to me that Christmas Eve is full of festive cheer and wonder.

Whilst pregnant with Hadley I shared a post about breastfeeding; Breastfeeding: will I try again?, after a negative experience trying to breastfeed Willow. Knowing that I at least wanted to try second time around, I invested in all sorts of essentials, ready and raring to give it my best shot. One such item was the hugely popular and highly recommended Chicco Boppy Nursing Pillow.

As a parent, you will often find yourself wondering what on earth to do with your children to keep them entertained, especially during half term! I've spent countless hours scouring the Internet looking for things I could do with the girls, especially free or low-cost activities. Here are some of our favourite places to explore in and around Loughborough, Leicestershire.

When I was a little girl, I used to look to those older than me in awe of the things they could do. When you're just a child, everything that adults can do seems so much more fun and enticing. Going out on your own, going clubbing, drinking alcohol, having a snazzy job, your own dream house and a flash car.

I looked at those around me, at their lives which seemed perfect, and pictured what my life would look like an adult, all the things I could do, the places I could visit, all the people I would meet. But what happens when your life doesn't turn out quite how you envisioned it?

Willow is a fan of watching Milkshake! in the morning and I let her pop it on whilst I sort breakfast and milk for the girls and get us ready for the day. At Christmas I decided I wanted to plan and book a few things to do in 2019, that would be engaging for Willow, but also suit us as a family of four with a baby and toddler to consider. Our local town hall puts on shows and acts throughout the year, but we'd never made a visit, so it was first on my list of things we could do together.

We were expecting Hadley to start teething quite young, as we'd experienced it with Willow, who ended up with teeth before she started weaning at 6 months old. With Willow, we used some of the classics, like Sophie la Giraffe which I really treasured buying for her whilst pregnant. This time, I wanted to see if there was something just as good, but without the little hole that squeaky teethers have, wanting something I can feel more confident using, hygiene wise. Hadley started showing signs of teething around 9 weeks old and I had seen Matchstick Monkey reviewed a lot, so we decided we'd give it a go to see how she got on.

I recently invested in a new Kindle. Whilst I do have the time to read at night, I don't like to turn on the bedside lights to read physical books, as the lights disturb Hadley; our almost 6-month-old who is happily still in our room (until she outgrows her crib!). Using a Kindle makes devouring books much easier, being backlit, it means I don't need to worry about disturbing anyone's sleep. Perfect timing, too, as Rachael, Amy and I thought it would be great to start an e-book club, putting our e-readers to good use and making the most of the selection of books available at our fingertips.


Each month we are going to select a book which is either free or very low in price, available on e-readers. There will be a mix of genres, selecting one book per month to read and at the end of each month, we will be sharing blog reviews featuring our thoughts on that month's read.

Of course, we would love anyone who loves reading and uses an e-reader themselves to join us each month. There's no pressure, no obligation to take part if you don't fancy reading one month that's absolutely fine. You won't be expected to share a review and you certainly don't have to have a blog to take part; we decided that to help make our book club as inclusive as possible across platforms, we would use a hashtag, #TheLiteraryAdventure, where we could share, check in and chat about each month's book.
You don't have to have a Kindle. Any device that works as an e-reader, where you can access the monthly read, works good enough for us!
We're keeping it budget friendly. That means either free or super cheap books will feature in The Literary Adventure, and, if a special book comes along that is slightly more pricey than usual and not something you want to purchase, you can skip that month's read.
Amy, Rachael and I will each review that month's read on our blogs. You don't have to have a blog yourself to take part - you can share with us via social media, too! This is not a book club just for bloggers!
Make sure you use #TheLiteraryAdventure across social media so we can connect and discuss as we go through each month. I'll be sharing on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook where you can find me @TattooedTealady!

We're kicking things off in May with The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I would love to hear if you like the sound of The Literary Adventure and whether you'll be taking part! I'm excited to get stuck in and be introduced to new authors and possible literary favourites!