‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house…

I am having a great time eating everything (all together now… calories don’t count in December) and wearing sequins every day and enjoying a lunchtime prosecco and I hope you are too. I’m listening to Christmas songs in the shower (I recently discovered this one which I love), unplugging every appliance in the house to make room for more fairy lights and baking up a frenzy, and I’m loving it. If you’re struggling a bit with the festive cheer, let’s see what we can do about that with a healthy sprinkle of hygge…

Firstly, finding the right thing to watch on Christmas Eve is ESSENTIAL. Something uplifting and fun that everyone can get together and enjoy is your best bet. In the Tanner fam, we’re going to be watching The Grinch (which my brother insists is a Christmas Eve tradition, though I don’t recall ever having done that before). My mum’s been through the one TV magazine she bothers to buy a year with her green highlighter and has all the classics covered (The Snowman, naturally) and whatever Christmas specials are on, and as I write this there’s a documentary about penguins on, so that’s pretty festive right?

Or, if you want an evening of sparkling conversation and arguments over Monopoly (everyone always wants to be the little dog except me – I like to be the iron so I can pretend I’m ironing my way around the board), a great option would be All Aboard! The Sleigh Ride. This was on BBC4 last year, and it follows the path of an ancient postal route of the Northern Scandinavian Sami people. This is the best example in existence of ‘slow TV’, and it’s two hours of mesmerising, wintery landscapes and crunching snow. This is PERFECT if you want something pretty and Christmassy on in the background without distracting from the conversation at hand.

And because it’s Christmas Eve, you’re totally allowed to treat yo’self. Today, I munched halloumi, olives, avocado, baba ganoush and mackerel pate for lunch and I loved it. Dinner tonight is going to be a takeaway, because who wants to be cooking something elaborate on Christmas Eve? Not me, that’s for sure.

My Christmas Eve usually ends with a ridiculously elaborate bath, complete with about five Lush bath bombs. I found a crushed one earlier, so that’ll go into my bath cocktail, and my aim is to flood the bathroom with bubbles. It wouldn’t be Christmas without glitter ALL over the bathroom would it now?

I won’t be making a conscious effort to hygge tonight, because I won’t need to. Julhygge is pretty much inevitable at this time of year. All the twinkly lights and the delicious food and the friends and family and tradition and reminiscing create the perfect storm for easy hygge. So crack open the glögg, help yourself to another clementine and above anything else, have a very merry Christmas!