Holidays are coming...Catch-up in Pictures

Here are my highlights;

My Company Christmas Party;  The Brewery is such a gorgeous venue. It was hosting multiple Christmas Parties on this night as it has lots of different rooms.  Our theme was Dream Circus and the room was decorated very well.  It was definitely a weird feeling watching all the other Companies employees dressed up to the nine's & then our company rocking up in casual clothes! It was cool to by comfy though!  The DJ played some great tunes, but had no idea of how to keep a crowd going.  He would play a banger and then follow it up with a slow jam and people just didn't get it!  Such a shame!  The food was really novel, it was an indian themed buffet of curries, rice & naan breads, but then they were serving mini pies with a dollop of mash & liquor and mini fajitas throughout the night. The highlight of the night has gotta be the photo booth!

Finance Team Meal; It was lovely to sit down & get to know my team.  We ate some lovely food & drank till we were merry!  Good clean fun had by all!

My Secret Santa Gift;  Santa made my day by giving me a retractable Kabuki Brush by Real Techniques. I make Secret Santa a bit of a "G!"

Pandora's Box - on a spare desk in our office we have a hamper filled with goodies and condiments for all to use. This box is rather aptly named "Pandora's Box"  It's usually populated with naughty items like biscuits, cakes & the like.  We each contribute to Pandora so this week as it's Christmas I decided to offer some mini cupcakes from Lola's Cupcakes.  Check out these delectably bite-size mouthfuls of heaven!

Christmas Shopping; Yesterday I had the "pleasure" of doing ALL my Xmas shopping.  The shops weren't nearly as busy as I had expected & I managed to pick up everything I needed without breaking the bank!  

Choir Practice; My Mother is a Choir Leader & every year we host the Christmas masses, so in the two weeks prior to Xmas, we get together on Sunday evening to rehearse the songs.  It always begins to feel Christmassy when I go to these practices, cos we sing all the Carols I love. It really makes my Christmas!

Bloggers Meet-Up;  Anne-Lise (Mookie) of Mookie's Life & I arranged an impromptu mini-meet up at Pizza Express in Reigate.  It was lovely to meet her and her friend Heidi.  They are beautiful ladies with many stories to tell.  It was such a honour to meet Mookie as I had been reading her blog for some time.  Heidi won a competition in Norway when she completed a dramatic weight-loss goal, I was so intrigued by her story.  Both ladies inspire me to be better, so thank you ladies for a lovely evening.

Putting up my Christmas Tree;  I have a Christmas Tree OCD, I need to make sure the tree both is aesthetically pleasing & symmetrical, much to the annoyance of my family. When other people help me decorate the tree, I get annoyed if they position decorations unevenly, to the point that I have been known to get up in the middle of the night and rearrange the tree whilst everyone is asleep. I even go so far as to match my wrapping paper to my tree decs and hide any presents (behind others) that do not match the colour scheme.  So this year, I promised Andy & Mya that I would let them have creative say over the tree.  So here is how they decorated it!

Ben Haenow; You may have heard that the winner of X-Factor UK this year was Ben Haenow.  I had the pleasure of working with Ben in one of my previous jobs.  He is a lovely man and I wish him the very best of luck in his new career.  A few friends of mine came together to his meet up in Croydon town centre to watch him perform.  He sang well and it was lovely to see how excited he was about the up-coming final.

Debs, Nathasha & I then went to Pizza express for some food and catch up.  It's so nice to spend time with these ladies, I love them but we all lead such busy lives, it's hard to get time to see each other often.