The Blethering Boys Xmas Gift Guide 2016

It's that time again!

Geez, it come around far too quickly.

My boys are at a rather tricky age this year, and I have to admit, I'm finding it difficult.

We are past the age of being able to delight with any old thing and very much into the age of more thoughtful and defining gifts, which I have to say I prefer.

I am very pleased to report that we must be having some kind of good affect on our kids through the way we conduct ourselves: already the boys have said that they don't care what they get, as long as everyone is happy and also that alongside their advent calendars this year, they would like to make a kindness jar, to enable them to do one kind deed each day.

These little glimmers of kindness and awesomeness are what make me so very proud and happy as a parent; we must be doing something right!

Like any parent, I still really want them to have what their hearts desire and this year, they have asked for tablets, so... :) We'll see what Santa brings!

The boys are really into shopping and have been browsing for gifts for others too.

We hope you enjoy our Blethering Boys 2016 Christmas Gift Guide!

STOCKING FILLERS

You can't go wrong with a lovely set of colouring pencils, and these ones from the Bic Kids range (rrp, £2.99) make a perfect wee stocking filler for some holiday colouring.

Sweets are always a welcome additon too, with some tasty treats in these perfect stocking-sized boxes from Swizzels available in Refreshers Softies, Wham bars and Fruit Salad Softies too! Yum!

And why not investigate uber-awesome and multi-coloured Smiggle for some gorgeous pens, paper, bags, books and all-round squee! Perfect to brighten up a stocking!

GIFTS FOR THE LADS

Stuck for a last-minute idea for the man in your life?  

The Braun Beard Trimmer (rrp £39.99) is an ideal gift to help your man stay groomed to perfection.

A super-cool tee from RedBubble should do the trick - they have an amazing range of cool designs, niche interests and geeky goodies galore!

Or for the essential piece of man-kit, why not go for the Leatherman Tread (rrp, £139-£189.99) - the ultimate man-bracelet which doubles (triples and quadruples!) into a a multi-tool!

GIFTS FOR THE BAIRNS

Disney's The Lion Guard playset (rrp £34.99) is a great gift for a wee one who loes a bit of roar-some fun!

The Leapfrop Leaping Letters (rrp£16.99) poses a great wee challenge for that niece or nephew who is just starting to learn their letters.

Of course BB8 bobblehead(rrp, £9.99) is bound to be a hit with Star Wars fans, old and young!

And the Bic Colouring Activity Set (rrp, £22) with 80 pieces, featuring Alvin and the Chipmunks is a lovely gift for that budding artist - and great value too!

GIFTS FOR YER MAW

Yarden Dead Sea Salts with Frankincense and rose petals (rrp, £8.99) are deliciously fragrant and make a wonderful gift to give yer maw a bit of well-earned relaxing time

Ladybird Books just keep coming up with some hilarious classics and 'The Mum' (rrp. £3.99) is one of my favourites!

Ness do some really gorgeous bags and purses and this really beautiful bag, Milly (rrp, £39.99), has a gorgeously patterned silk lining too! Cute!

The thing I got excited by the most about the VARV table lamp by IKEA (rrp £50) is the fact that it's wireless!  Waaaah! I hate wires.  This one charges via usb and then stays bright for ages, making it cool and minimalistic too. Perfect!

Of course, this year I am all about the giving and Xmas, for me, wouldn't be complete without some form of charitabel giving.  This year I am practicing what I preach and gifting via www.goodgifts.com

Be sure to have a look at some of the lovely ways you can pass on the love to someone else who needs it :)

Thanks for reading the Blethering Boys 2016 gift guide. 

The boys and I would like to wish you all the very best of the season to you and yours.

See you, Jimmy

We've all seen or heard of Elf on the Shelf? Right?

It's a pretty cutesy and magical thing to do with your kids.  Part of the lure of Christmas time for me is the crazy imaginative stuff that goes with it.

Santa's watching?  Best behaviour monitor ever.  You should see my youngest get a grip and behave himself when I mention those two very magical words; 'Santa's watching.'

I have had amazing shows of kindness, empathy and love from these kids because of Christmas - they make cards for Santa 'because Santa never gets any cards, mummy, and that's not fair!', they have thought very carefully about what people would like for Christmas, and they have also had a thought for other children who might not have so much, making sure we donate to foodbanks and baby banks.

I also love the challenge of creating magic for them - it goes from the mystery of what's behind the advent calendar door, to visiting Santa in his grotto, to helping them make special decorations for the tree which become keepsakes.  I really, really love it.

Elf on the Shelf has crept up in my newsfeed gradually every year, starting as a novelty thing one friend brought back from America one year, and now, suddenly, everyone is at it, my newsfeed filled with everyone's really funny and cheerful Elf on the Shelf antics.

It's the kind of thing that really grips me; the idea of making something every night for my kids to find in the morning.  The perfect mix of magic and naughtiness.  When I was wee, I sincerely believed that my toys had feelings and came alive at night, and I know my kids share the same healthy imagination, so I would have loved to have done it this year.

But yet again, it was just another thing that fell by the wayside as we budgeted for Christmas - an Elf on the Shelf, although awesome is a pricey piece of equipment.  I just couldn't justify that amount of money for a Christmas decoration, albeit a really cool memory-making one.

Turns out though, you don't need a real Elf on the Shelf to freak your kids out.  When your imagination is as wild as my boys', you can pretty much get away with magic thoughts alone.

And we have.

Introducing, Jimmy.

You can't see Jimmy.  He only comes when everyone is in bed, and he is really, really naughty.  Very silly indeed.  He plays tricks on everyone in the middle of the night.  He doesn't come every night either, only on the nights where me or Dave actually remember to do something silly.  So far, Jimmy has done various naughty things.

He wrapped toilet roll around the television.

He put pants on the Christmas tree (this one in particular got a lot of laughs).

He made the Lego alarm clocks hang by their bums from the top of the television (can you see where my children's focus is first thing in the morning?)

He left a crazy mess on the table.

He took apart Ethan's carefully constructed Mr Potato Heads.

He also gets blamed when things go wrong, which is actually working wonders for Ethan and his crazy tantrums.

For example, Ethan, at the moment, has a thing about wearing gloves when we go out.  Nobody else bothers, but he is very insistent.  The trouble is, he never takes them both off together or leaves them both in the same place, so more often than not, one always goes astray, which leads to all kinds of morning stresses and dilemmas.

Don't mess with the glubs!

The other morning, he found both of his mickey mouse mittens.  Brilliant - no drama!

How wrong I was.

They were a glove from each of the two sets we own; both were left handers.

Bugger!

'Mummy!  My glubs!  My glubs are not working!'

'Aw Ethan, you've got two the same, honey!'

And then, magically, without me doing a thing...

'Mummy, it must be Jimmy that did it!  Jimmy swapped my glubs! Jimmy!!!'

I still can't find that dratted other glove, but Ethan is very happy to turn the other upside down and wear them anyway, because Jimmy did it.

(I bought him new glubs for Christmas, don't worry!)

Tantrum avoided!

I might have taken the whole thing too far though, when I downloaded an app on my phone called Santa Spy Cam.  It lets you use the camera on your phone to superimpose animations of elves doing silly things, so it looks like they are in your house.  I made a few up; one of Jimmy peeking out of my wardrobe and going back in, one of Jimmy driving his car along the unit and disappearing into the TV, one of Jimmy dancing on my bed with my knees on it.  It looked really good.

The boys were quite amused, but admittedly, a lot more freaked out than I thought they would be.

Thomas refused to go through to the other room to get dressed without accompaniment.

Ethan kept asking if he would be going into his room, like he'd gone into mine.

It all ended with a phone call to Santa, to see what Jimmy was up to and if Santa would have a wee word with Jimmy - it's not good to drive cars in the house apparently, and especially not into TVs.  He shouldn't bounce on the bed either.

Making Jimmy a 'reality' was one step too far, apparently.

Jimmy has got them some gifts as a thanks for having him.  He might do something a bit daft tonight as a last hurrah before Christmas Eve.

The power of imagination is a wonderful thing.

And we didn't need an Elf on the Shelf to do it!

Christmas is coming!

I messaged my sister in law last night to see how she was getting on with her wee ones in the run up to Christmas.  She has a brand new baby boy and it's been a really busy time - I think she must be some kind of superwoman for getting everything together for Christmas and also looking after two kids aged two and under.  I remember quite well what it was like for us a few years ago - and Ethan's birthday was in October, which meant I had phenomenally more time to get my shit together (and I sincerely did not)!

This year I feel really overwhelmed - due to losing approximately 9 weeks of my life to morning sickness and the wonderful early stages of pregnancy, I feel like I woke up about a week ago to a nightmare-ish scenario of loads to do, lots to sort out and virtually no time left at all to do it.

Panic stations!

Ho Ho Ho!

Hence there has been a lot of panicked buying, planning and hasty wrapping going on. I feel like we have missed so much this year - usually I do all sorts of crafts and fun stuff with the kids, but this year we just haven't had the energy nor the time.  Still, we have done the fundamentals; we took the kids to see Santa at our usual venue and we still went to the cinema to see our annual festive film (which this year was Paddington - very nice indeed) which I think I enjoy more than anything.  I love making memories.

The boys popped into my workplace last-minute with Dave to make some lovely crafts with some other families, who all had an amazing time making snowmen out of cotton wool, glittery decorations and playing in the 'snow' foam tray with polar bear figurines.  It was so nice to let them be glittery and gluey and foamy without having to worry about house destruction!

In my panic about whether we have enough sellotape, or if I have forgotten anyone on my card list, I try to remember the stuff we have done.  The boys have been hyped since November - Christmas has been absolutely everywhere.  Our tree has been up since the first of December.  Tom has written his cards for his classmates.

Yes, there are things we would like to be able to do but there is also the fact that the kids don't care!

And I don't mean that they don't care about doing all of the things that make Christmas for us, but what I do mean is that they don't want to hit that saturation point.

None of us do.  There is stuff absolutely everywhere.  Where we live, we could visit a different Santa every day of the week for a month.  We could attend every single Christmas showing, Christmas panto, visit all of the Christmas shops, spend days and days watching a plethora of Christmas films, tv specials and documentaries.  The shops are stuffed to the gunnels with jumpers, antler headbands, santa hats and (of all things) Christmas leggings.  It's crazy.

Yet, I have been constantly reminded this year that it really is the little things.

It's spending time all together instead of stressing out at the shops.

It's watching The Snowman before bedtime.

It's reading Christmas books borrowed from the library.

It's getting excited at a Christmas card through the door.

It's dipping your cookies in your milk because 'That's what Santa does!'

It's dressing up like Santa, beard and hat included, because you are 4 years old and you idolise Santa.


In our wee catch up, my sister in law rounded off with this sentiment, which is something I have found to be very true: 'Christmas with kids is the best!'

You know what?  When you forget about the other rubbish, the magic of the season, especially in the company of little people who are very excited and loving the participation, really is the best.

These guys are really my reason for the season.

Ethan loves to dress as Santa - 'I HAVE to wear my red coat, mummy!'

Party Day: The Two Birthdays in Two Weeks Quandry

Our boys have their birthdays within two weeks of each other, which has always been a bit of a headache for us.

Two little monkeys

The first year, we had two very expensive celebrations, feeding our huge family twice with a lot of food to honour both our then three year old and one year old.

The second year, we had learned from the year before.  The month was already expensive enough with two birthdays, why not have just one celebration?

We hired the local hall, complete with bouncy castle, musical statues and pass the parcel, and decided to host it here for everyone - we also invited some of the boys' friends from nursery!  Bonus!  We held it between the two birthdays, sure that this was the obvious, perfect solution.  There would be food for both adults and children. Perfect!

Wrong!

We hugely underestimated how excited both children would be for their birthdays, and also how excited everyone else was for them (which of course is very lovely).

We ended up with not just one celebration, not two, but three whole celebrations, complete with three cakes and snacks across three days.  It was crazy - and much more expensive than the previous year.  But, no matter, by all accounts we were still experimenting.  And also, there's nothing wrong with eating party food for a whole month (I quite enjoyed the extra cake, crisps and chocolate that happened to be lying around - who wouldn't?!)

The kids had had a blast, and we had really enjoyed seeing everyone so frequently and were really grateful that they had made the time and the effort for the kids, but we also felt guilty about asking folk to make such time and effort so close together.  Our family, although large, is not especially social and doesn't spend a lot of time together naturally, plus, you know, the usual busy with life stuff.

Dave: "How can we make it so that we have one efficient birthday celebration? Hmm?"

Me: "Disneyland!"

That's right.  I'm crazy!

We went from the sublime to the ridiculous last year when I suggested, researched, booked and executed an elaborate surprise trip to Disneyland Paris for the kids' birthdays.

But, I surmised, it combined the elements of holiday and birthday celebration perfectly, and, oddly, was quite cheap (I got an amazing deal in the January sale).  We booked up for 4 nights, children were free and we got a free food package.  It was brilliant.  And what's more, our best buddies decided to come along too and join in the birthday celebrations! Amazing!

We had such a great time - it was truly magical.  I won't go into the whole holiday (that's a completely different blog post), but we were all completely blown away.

Due to school holidays and pricing, we ended up going away the first week in October.

We ended up in the Mickey Mouse cafe on Tom's 5th birthday, complete with cake and singing and finished the night with fireworks at the castle.  As we were walking back to our hotel, Ethan in the buggy, Tom on the buggy board, Tom whispered to us 'I can't wait until I have kids so I can tell them how great this has been.'

Deal, done - best time ever.

We had tried to make it about both kids - we packed presents for both, gave them both as equal a share in cake celebrations as we could, but there was no escaping the fact that Tom definitely had the best birthday out of the two.  We had a small pirate party for Ethan at home when we got back, and Tom got in on this too: because we hadn't been at home on his actual birthday, everyone was really keen to see him and give him gifts too, which was great.

But it was tough to make it equal.

Delight!

This year, they are that bit older, that bit wiser to birthdays and what they entail.

Poor Ethan is still a bit young.  At very nearly 4 years old, he is very excited, very much into it all and really clued up on parties, cake and presents.

Having Tom's birhday first has really confused him though.

First, he got a few really cool presents on Tom's birthday from some relatives, which meant he felt included and he was really excited about that.

Next, they both asked for a party for them and their friends, which we held yesterday at a local hall. We decided, to be fair, to hold it in the middle of the school holidays and in the middle of their birthdays.

It was chaos.  Nearly 30 children in a hall with a bouncy castle and lots of bikes.  We spent a lot of time making Pinterest-inspired food, sourcing cheap tablecloths and stressing out about invitations.

Ethan's birthday is tomorrow, but his dad is working overnight tonight and then until late on tomorrow, so instead of missing it all, we have decided to have Ethan's birthday today, so we can celebrate together.

Much more chaos has ensued.  Instead of having one birthday and a party between them, they have both ended up with one party, a gathering of family on each birthday day and Ethan is technically having two birthdays, plus celebrated on Thomas's and got loads of lovely presents from his party yesterday. Both boys have been absolutely saturated!  But what the hey - you're only wee once!

Yeesh!

Next year it is Ethan's 5th birthday and we plan to go away for it - I'll be searching for a deal in January, but blooming heck! Who knows if we'll ever come up with a solution for the birthday problem!

When they are older it will be easier to explain, but at the moment it's really nice that everyone is so keen to celebrate our little boys.  We are so lucky and really grateful.

A huge thanks goes out to everyone who has celebrated with us.