A Christmas Message from Cherry & My Word for 2010

Oh my goodness I can’t believe that I’m even writing this message, it’s very exciting to be with you at this time of year and I hope you’re having a wonderful time.

First of all I would like to say thank you to everyone who has taken part in our Christmas Stocking Advent Extravaganza. We have had such fun putting this together and are so glad that we managed to pull it off. It has been a privilege to giveaway the caliber of prizes that we have had and enormously encouraging and humbling to see so many of you wanting to take part and join in the fun.

It has also been a time of learning for me as we thought about and I then wrote the 24 separate articles that went behind each advent stocking. It’s really important for me to draw from personal experience when writing but I also wanted the information behind the stocking to be applicable to as many people as possible. I can’t tell you what time of day to put your Turkey in the oven as I don’t know how large it is but I can suggest ways to ensure that you leave enough time to get everything done in time for lunch before anyone gets grouchy or starves.

It has also been very beneficial to do virtually the whole of Autumn and Christmas while experiencing the early stages of pregnancy. Never before have I not been able to rush and sprint around the place powered by coffee. Never before have I had to conserve energy and think about my time so seriously. It has given me a wonderful taster of what is to come and what many of my readers already have to do while looking after their families.

I’ll be a full-time working mother when my twins pop out and this , I know, will be a tremendous challenge. But, like so many of you, I’m not the first and no different from all of the other miracle working mums that ‘make it all happen’ on a day to day basis across the world.

Jodie and I try to bring as much thought and care as we possibly can to the projects we put on to my website. We think about costs, different abilities and always work from the premise that if I can do it anybody can do it as I myself am entirely self-taught in all that I do. I have simply made it my business to know as much as I possibly can about all that I do. I grew up phoning my Nana when I was making my first stew “a stew boiled is a stew spoiled” she would say and my Mum taught me how to knit, crochet and use a sewing machine when I was little but those activities were soon discarded when I got in to fashion, music and boys. I’m sure that’s true of many of us and this is what makes it all that much sweeter when, years later, we re-discover skills that we thought had been lost forever.

So, with our team expanding in January to welcome another member of staff it is now up to me to make a promise of new, vibrant and rich content to come your way in 2010.

I always begin the New Year, not with a resolution, but with a word and my word for the new year is ‘Life’.

I’ll expand on that in my first newsletter of January to be published on the site on Monday the 4th. But until then have a wonderful Christmas, a safe and Happy New Year’s Eve and I’ll see you in all your glory on the other side.

I’ll be posting regular pictures to my site from my own family Christmas and a little trip that Robert the Husband and I are making to the snow. So feel free to peek in over the Christmas week and see what we’ve been up to.

Until then thank you all so much, Happy Christmas and lots and lots of love from me!

Cherry xoxoxo