Official permission to be excited!

December 1st... at last, at last! The lights have been up in Leeds for the last two weeks, the Christmas tree greets me every morning in front of the train station with baubles and energy efficient sparkle, and the buskers have all changed their tunes; Deck the Halls assaults me every time I leave the office at lunch. But through all this Sinéad has insisted there is no reason to be excited, Christmas being ages and ages away. I had to promise most solemnly to withhold general bouncing about and bedecking of doors with wreaths until we were at least the month of December.

And here we are!!!! Less than a month till Christmas and so much excitement to catch up on! Our first Christmas in Yorkshire, in our little 19th century cottage, in our little Dickensian town! There will be no travelling this year. We're going to spend the holidays cuddled up in front of the turf fire, watching the tree and the turtles. Dog on the hearth, stocking on the mantle. And before all this snuggly together time we have torchlit walks in Haworth, friends over for mulled wine and biscuits, baking days and present wrapping days, Christmas markets, office parties, and, best of all, I have an advent calendar to take me day-by-day to Christmas.

Every year Sinéad makes me an advent calendar. The first year, she hand-sewed little bits of silk into pouches, painted numbers on them with glitter pen, filled them with little presents, and hung them on a little metal tree. The second year I was in Bangladesh and we couldn't be together: she made me a little photo album with a card covering each photo, so every day I revealed another picture of something we've shared. The next year she stuck little vouchers to a calendar and every day I got something exciting, like coffee in bed or ten minutes of dread working.

This year I have a waterfall of stars... each one with a present inside (which I have on good authority need to stay away from the radiators as there may be chocolate involved).

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...!