Blogmas : Day one | The Christmas Tag

Hello everybody! It is officially Blogmas and what’s a better way to start it off than with the Christmas Tag? I spotted these questions online and thought they were the ideal way to introduce you to some of my thoughts on Christmas. I hope you enjoy! Happy December y’all x

1. What is your favourite Christmas Movie/s?

My favourite Christmas movie has to be Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. When I was two years old, I had just got out of hospital from having my heart operation around this time of the year.  Rudolph was one of the first movies I watched when I got back. It’s a happy sad kind of film with a lot of memories attached to it for me and my family. That and Annabelle’s Wish. I adore that film. It’s about a cow who wishes she was a reindeer. It sounds silly now, but watch it and I bet you cry!

2. Do you open your presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning?

Christmas morning obviously! Santa delivers them when I’m asleep on Christmas eve, duuurrr!!! I do love Christmas morning though. Me and my family gather around the tree in our PJs and open all of the goodies underneath it. It’s a special cosy moment.

3. Do you have a favourite Christmas memory?

Yes! But only now that I can look back on it… When me and my sister were younger we would leave nine Maltesers out for Santa’s reindeer and of course, some whiskey for him. The Maltesers would sit in the top of an empty Pringles lid. On Christmas morning we went downstairs to see if the reindeer had eaten the Maltesers and the Pringles lid was empty, except for a lot of reindeer saliva (of course this was my dad trying to make things look as real as possible). Such a genious drunken idea… which I don’t think I’ll ever forget. Santa and his reindeer were real to me that day.

4. Favourite festive food?

My Nana’s mince pies. Oh mt gawd, I have not tasted mince pies as good as the ones she makes. Honestly they are the best things ever, and super special because she only makes them at Christmas (even though it is illegal to eat mince pies on Christmas day!). I’m going home this weekend, and I hear she has been baking. The excitement is unreaaaal!!

5. Favourite Christmas gift?

The gift of life, love, family and health. Honestly, as corny as it sounds, they are the most important things to me and they are all that I want on Christmas day. For this Christmas most importantly is that my Auntie can celebrate the day and has an amazing time. That would mean the world.

6. Favourite Christmas scent?

There are too many! A box of freshly opened Roses Chocolates. That is the ultimate Christmas smell for me. Or a warm house that smells of cooking and food. Then there is the synthetic Christmas smell, and I don’t know how to explain it… it is just the smell of Christmas. My mum had a pencil that was scented with the smell.

7. Do you have any Christmas Eve traditions?

We have a party with my family at my house, where there are goodies on the table and my dad comes up with party games and it’s just a fun, nice gathering before Christmas.

8. What tops your tree?

We now have a Star, however on previous years it was this really creepy pot angel. But she just sits elsewhere on the tree now and has been replaced with a sparkly gold star.

9. As a kid what was the one (crazy, wild, extravagant) gift you always asked for but never received?

I don’t think I ever asked for anything crazy or wild. I might have to get back to you on this one! I mean, even though he is magical, Santa is just human at the end of the day! Though one thing I did get was a toy of a black dog that I had seen in Santa’s workshop online. That was pretty crazy.

10. What’s the best part about Christmas for you?

It has changed over the years, but now that I have moved out and gone to university, the best part about Christmas is coming home and being surrounded by the people I love. Nothing beats being with your family.

I now tag whoever is reading this to answer the questions! Please comment below your blog posts if you do complete these, I’d love to see your answers x

Challenge | Next Ten Questions

6. Are you afraid of Aeroplanes? How come?

Yes, even though I’ve never been on one, right now they keep disappearing… it’s scary!

7. Would you like to write a book?

Yes, well kind of… I’ve had this story in my head for a very long time which would be great for a comic, however I guess I could write it as a novel. Either way I really want to get it on paper.

8.  If you could choose your own life obstacles would you keep the ones you have had?

I would. I feel as though if I could change my life obstacles then I wouldn’t be the person I am today. Everything I have faced and overcome in life has made me who I am and for that I would keep every obstacle that has come my way as they are as much as a part of me as all the blessings I’ve had in life.

9. What are you most grateful for in life?

My family. They are the best thing that has happened to me and probably that will ever happen to me. I can’t imagine life without them. They have supported me throughout my whole life and are constantly there for me. I can’t imagine being surrounded by better people. I know that whatever happens they’ll always have my back and I’ll always have theirs. They are the most precious thing in my life.

10. What are the biggest things you’ve learned in life to date?

Be strong for yourself and others. Appreciate the small things. Create as many memories as possible. Don’t retaliate. Believe. Be confident. But most importantly, be happy and enjoy everything – Life is too short! As The Charlatans say, Live it like you love it, I couldn’t put it better myself.

11. What do you need to do to achieve your ideal physical look?

Weights!! I want Wonder Woman arms.

12. Have you ever met someone who is genuinely evil?

At the time, yes, but I can’t name and shame now, can I?

However, I do try and see the good in people and I do think that everyone has at least an ounce of goodness in them, just to balance out that evil side!

13. Have you ever kept a new year’s resolution?

Nope, Nope and nope! Every one I’ve set I’ve broken… though none have been particularly  interesting ones, in fact I can’t even remember the one I set for this year. Oops!

14. Do you have any physical features you try to hide?

I used to try and hide my scar; I felt self-conscious about it for a period of my life. But I don’t really bother over that anymore. I am who I am. You have to work with what you’ve been given!

15. What’s in your pocket right now?

Nothing! I’m wearing a dress so I have no pockets. However if it were my jeans I was wearing then probably a late toffee wrapper from a few Christmases ago. 

Challenge | Questions 3 / / 4 / / 5

3. Have you ever fantasised about changing your first name? To what?

Yes! Probably to Tabitha. Then it could be shortened to Tabby which sounds like Abi. At the moment though my friend calls me Bee which which I kind of like. Just different versions of my name I suppose!

4. When do you get your best ideas?

At night when I’m in that twilight zone and I’m not really thinking of anything but at the same time it’s as though all my thoughts in the day come together, mixing up ideas and producing things I don’t think I’d ever think of if it wasn’t for being in that state.

It’s either then when ideas come to me or when I’m least expecting it. Whenever I try and think of something to write or draw I can never think of anything good but when I’m not focused on anything a load of thoughts come into my head at once, it can be quite annoying!

5. Have you ever had chance to meet your heroes? 

It depends what you class as a hero. I’ve been lucky enough to meet people I admire, The Charlatans, The Heartbreaks, The Gramotones. Then there are the people I look up to like John Robb and Sarah Lay who are amazing journalists. With John Robb coming from a background pretty much like my own it lets me set my aspirations high!

But the one hero that I’d really like to meet is the Doctor who saved my life when I was two years old! I know I have kind of met him when I was a baby, but I’ve never had the chance to shake his hand and thank him. If it wasn’t for him my life would be soo different to how it is now… I might not have even made it to ten years old, let alone eighteen. I have a lot to owe this guy and I hope that someday I’ll be able to meet him and let him know how grateful I am.

Challenge | Question 2

What are you most afraid of?

I don’t know why, I think it’s the unknown but I can never talk about death or think about death without feeling sick. I mean, I can’t imagine not being here. Leaving all of your friends and family behind.  Not living, seeing or feeling. Everything just numb, gone and forgotten about in a rotting grave.

I’m a religious person, I do believe in a God or a greater being but somehow that still doesn’t fully comfort me. I think now with the world becoming more secular you’re open to more views on life after death allowing you to think more and make your own opinion.

It’s great how in medieval times God and Religion was so powerful that when someone died people celebrated rather than being sad. They thought you were going to a better place and they had no fear as it was an honour to die. That to me is such a good way of living. To believe that there is something, spiritual or not just that sense of there being something after death may take away the fear.

I try and tell myself this and I do believe that the spirit carries on, but for some strange reason, I still fear death.

I see our bodies as an empty vessel, almost like a shell that the soul takes on and once the body dies, the spirit then leaves. The whole body thing is just like a machine.

Take a car for example. We have to set the ignition for the car to work and then we can take it on a journey. The engine runs by its self until it has no fuel. I think our bodies are like this. The soul ignites us and brings us to life, then it controls our journey and what we are like and then one day we die (or should I say, run out of fuel) and the spirit leaves the body.

After that, the possibilities are endless…

• Reincarnation – Do we get to live again as our soul takes on another body? Is it just like stepping out of one car and into another?
• Ghosts – Do we still get to roam the Earth? Maybe space? Or other planets?
• Heaven and Hell – are we met by our maker?
• Nothing – Does the spirit also die?

The list goes on and on.

I do think we are a ball of energy which is released once we die. If we’re ghosts can this energy have the force to push and pull things? Are there a hundred more senses that the spirit has that our human body is only subjected to five? There is so much we don’t understand because I think our human brain is limited to the spirits knowledge.

One thing is for sure is that death happens to us all, everyone goes through the process and yet no one knows what this process consists of.

Like I said before, I’m afraid of death but I think I’m more afraid of the unknown. 

Blog 100 | Challenge 100

This is my 100^th blog post and what better way than to set myself a challenge…

Seeing as this is my 100^th blog, I have decided to answer 100 questions I’ve found on a collection of ‘self-discovery’ sites and hopefully before the summer ends I will have managed to get through them and will have ‘discovered myself’ before I leave for university.

The inspiration behind me setting myself this challenge is because I recently went to a Mind and Spirit fair where I spoke to a lady about writing a journal. She explained how it had been self-meditating for her and had helped her through hard times in her life. I know this idea isn’t quite like writing a journal but hopefully it will allow me to express myself and discover things I didn’t know about myself. It will be one big learning process for the both of us!

Some of the questions are quite personal and some are very vague but I will try to be extremely honest with you throughout answering them and more importantly be brutally honest with myself.

Do expect some random blogs in between these questions as I may want to share something with you that might not be entirely related to this challenge I’ve set myself, but I think the majority of them will be! (at least  100 of them however!)

Anyway here goes! My 100 questions challenge…

The only rule is that I answer them all.

Wish me luck

J