The parenting blogger community seems to love Christmas just as much as I do. Which ever blog I visit these days, I can be sure that the magic of Christmas will be greeting me. Many blogs have posted Christmas guides, yummy recipes and blog posts about Christmas traditions and because I love Christmas so much I have come up with, tadadada…. The Ultimate Christmas Meme – so we can talk even more about elves, the Grinch, A Fairytale of New York and the best recipe for Santa’s mince pies. Feel free to join in, tag and spread the love of Christmas! I have even made a christmasy badge that you can grab at the bottom of this post – brownie points from Santa or what?!

1. The Christmas songs I can even listen to in June is… Fairytale of New York. I have only come across this song about three years ago when I watched P.S. I Love You but since then it is my all time favourite. Shame Ben hates it with a passion but that makes me only love it more. The Irish folk style of it instantly gives me a good mood and who doesn’t like a bit of swearing because the lyrics ask you to?

2. Hot chocolate, egg nog or mulled wine? For me it’s hot chocolate all the way. For one, I don’t do eggs – especially not when they’re raw and mulled wine always has cinnamon in it – no no no.

3. When do you put your decorations up? This year, I am slightly behind. Usually, I get everything up for the first advent but this year we are waiting for our Christmas tree to arrive, so we can get put everything up together. There’ll be lights in the windows and on the tree, of course, a Christmas wreath, lots of candles and my German Räuchermännchen collection – hand-carved wooden incense burners in the shape of a little figure.

4. What are you having for Christmas dinner? It’s our first Christmas as a family of three and the first Christmas that we aren’t celebrating with my family, so I have already waved good-bye to my nan’s goose or duck with red cabbage and potato dumplings and as we are having a turkey joint for roast dinner most weekends, turkey won’t be on the menu either. Ben really fanices lamb and as I don’t mind, lamb it is. I shall report if it could live up to my nan’s Christmas dinner.

5. What’s your favourite Christmas tradition? Being German means my traditions differ quite a bit from the ones that are common in the UK. We put up the Christmas tree on the morning of Christmas Eve and decorate it before we have lunch and go for a long walk in the snow (doubt, I’ll do this over here). In the afternoon, we play board games and eat Stollen and around 5pm we go to church for the Christmas service. I am not particularly religious but I love the peaceful atmosphere in church and most of all the singing. Once, we are back home, we have Christmas dinner and then it is all about opening the presents. This can take ages, so we sometimes still sit around the Christmas tree around 2am…

6. Have you even gone carole singing? No, but I was in a school choir and we had a regular Christmas concert in the local church – full house, each and every year. If that was down to my great hosting skills and singing? I hope so…

7. When did you discover the truth about Santa? Unfortunately, it was quite early. I think I was 6 or 7 when I found out that Santa is not real. In Germany, it is common that a neighbour or family friend dresses up as Santa and hands out the presents to the whole family in exchange for a song or poem. Well, our Santa wore my mum’s red dressing gown that had a big Chinese print on the bag. It’s not my fault that I could put two and two together, is it?

8. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? We are going for a purple and gold theme this year. It’s our first ever own Christmas tree and we took quite a while to decide what colours we want to use and in the end, I won. We’ll be hanging some gold tinsel on it and use yellow(ish) lights because I don’t find anything more annoying than blinking coloured lights.

9. What’s the best thing about Christmas? For me it’s a clear one: Giving presents. I find giving presents so much more exciting than receiving presents, especially when I think that I have found the perfect present for someone. I just love the look of happiness and surprise in people’s faces – it just makes my Christmas and then there’s of course spending quality time with the family: playing board games, going for walks, just being relaxed and not having to do anything or rush around.

10. All I want for Christmas is… a great and memorable day with my little family. Full of new and old traditions. Fun. Laughter and happy faces!

I am tagging: Jenny from Mummy Mishaps, Ella from Purple Mum, Nicki from Curly & Candid, Pippa from A Mother’s Ramblings and Me from TheBoyandMe.

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