2016 Achievements

Hey guys, hope you’re enjoying this Christmas celebrating experience and have been having lots of fun – let me know in the comments what you have all been up to!

My apologies for not posting anything yesterday, I planned to but got so caught up with Christmas festivities with family and friends that I literally didn’t get a second of time. It was a great day though. However, it does mean I’m a bit behind with Blogmas. The post I originally had planned for yesterday is not being published today, I’m not entirely sure when I’m going to publish it but I’ll get it done – I promise.

Today’s post, as we’re now nearing the end of 2016 *sobs* is going to be about my achievements and how I’m feeling in myself about the year. I don’t want this to sound big-headed but as a person I feel like there is always room for improvement, especially at a young age and especially when there’s all this stress on young people about their future, their education, their career etc. you feel like your entire life is dependent on the decisions you make now. The achievements you have now. The effort you put in now. And with all of this going on we also have to try and figure out who we are as people, develop in to people we would like to know, make ourselves people we like, people we can be proud of and all of this is very tiring. Very stressful. So I am here now to talk about all the things I have done that I feel are achievements to my future and to me as a person.

I guess the first thing to talk about, which I believe to be the biggest and most important achievement, is my anxiety and fear. I don’t have proper anxiety, like, I haven’t been diagnosed with it or anything but for lack of a better word, and the fact is, it is anxiety it just doesn’t affect me in the way it severely affects others. It has improved so much this year, I used to get really fearful about others when they weren’t in the house or really worried about myself. I would worry that they were injured or hurt and would sometimes text them to make sure they were okay. If I was home alone while my family were out I would get paranoid about every little noise, worrying the house was going to blow up or catch fire. I would worry about having a shower home alone in case that meant I couldn’t hear a burglar if they tried to get into the house – all really stupid, ridiculous things that were clearly just me being paranoid and lately it’s all been lessening to be almost non-existent and that’s made me so much happier and more relaxed. It feels like a massive weight has been lifted off my shoulders, I was actually paranoid about being paranoid, I used to worry that there was something wrong with me, that I was having these abnormal feelings that I perhaps should see someone about and now that paranoia has gone away too – I now have realized that everyone at a young age who’s experiencing a new level of independence gets paranoid and slightly worried about specific things because they have no experience with them, so I consider this a huge achievement in coming a full mature and independent adult, which is a necessary skill to have.

One of the other things would be my confidence – in all areas of life but specifically my acting. My acting has considerably improved over the course of the year and it’s not just me saying that, I’ve had others say that to me too, but that’s definitely been a high to my year as I need to be confident in my acting – no actor ever got anywhere by not being confident. I’m really pleased that I have this new found confidence in my acting because I never thought it would come, I’m one of those people who’s quite shy and awkward and therefore situations where I have to do silly things never really work out very well but that’s changed; I feel that my acting can now go to many new places with this new confidence and it seems like the only way is up now – especially with monologues to perform in auditions in the new year. As well as confidence in my acting I feel like I have gained confidence during social activities, when it comes to speaking to people. I have gained confidence in my job and most importantly I have gained confidence in myself.

The next achievement is my education and motivation. Before this year, I hadn’t really had much experience with studying, revising or exams at all for that matter. The only exams I’d ever done were music exams and they aren’t really classed into the same category as GCSEs and A-levels. As well as sitting and passing three GCSEs a year early I have also developed motivation for studying and revising for my next year exams much earlier than I did earlier on in the year. I feel like I am well on my way to being prepared for these next lot of exams. Education-wise other than in terms of exams I have successfully decided what my educational steps are after my GCSEs next year as well as going to a number of open days, filling out my applications and sending them and have in fact got an interview day for one of them and two more dates coming in the new year.

Again, I don’t want to sound big-headed but I feel like I am truly prepared for life at the moment, yes, I am very stressed about the new year and all it’s new paths and experiences to be had. I am very scared of all the new situations I am going to be walking into, such as sixth form life. I am very nervous about all of my exams. But at the same time I have never felt more prepared for such a year. I have never looked on into a new year with such excitement yet uncertainty. With such happiness yet fear. And I say, bring it on!

I hope you enjoyed this post, if you did please give it a like. Make sure to leave comments down below letting me know what your biggest achievements of 2016 were. If you don’t follow me already, it’s quick, simple and free – all you have to do is click the follow button to get my new posts straight into your reader as soon as I publish them!

If you wish to get in touch, do not hesitate to do so by using my e-mail – aninspiredteen@gmail.com

Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year!

Inspired Teen 🙂

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Christmas Bucket List Review

Hey guys, I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and got loads of amazing Christmas presents (I have a Christmas present haul coming tomorrow!!), let me know in the comments what you did for Christmas and what your favourite present was.

My Christmas had it’s ups and it’s downs. There were definitely more ups than there were downs but I think everyone has good parts and bad parts of Christmas, don’t they?

For today’s post I am going to review My Christmas Bucket List and see how I did at checking everything off, funnily enough I didn’t even go back to the bucket list throughout the month to see how I was doing, I literally forgot about it until looking in my blogger notebook just now to see what blog post I had to write – yes, I know, I’m so organised I even have a blogger notebook! Woo! Anyway, if you haven’t read my Christmas bucket list you can go and read it here, if you have then you may proceed!

Make Gingerbread Men – I did do this! For the first time ever at Christmas time, now not only have I completed it from my Christmas bucket list but my life-long bucket list as well! I think the main reason I wanted to make them at Christmas is because it seems to be a thing, if you go on Tumblr or Instagram or things like that and look at Christmas-themed posts you always see fancy gingerbread men. This year was also the first year that gingerbread men has been made in the house since my Mum and I went vegan so it was a bit of a gamble whether it would actually taste good or not but it did and was a huge success – I’ve been munching on them since yesterday lunch time, as have my entire family. I have to admit though that it took forever to roll out the dough and cut them into the shapes, literally, forever, I thought it was never going to end. But it did and they were delicious! If you would like the recipe that I used you can click here.

Decide On A Christmas Dinner – So, I don’t technically know whether I can tick this off as officially completed or not… I guess you can decide and let me know what you concluded in the comments. We had our Christmas dinner tonight, we didn’t really have anything fancy yesterday because no one was all that hungry because everyone was too busy shoving chocolate in their mouths (or my siblings were any way) and we were playing games and time just got a bit lost and then it got a bit too late to cook anything so we decided on a not-so-fancy dinner in the living room with the TV and to be honest, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. It was exactly right to fit in with the day. But my Mum did technically decide on a meal yesterday, she just never got around to cooking it so I’m going to say it counts. Also, can I just say that the dinner she did make (with my vegetable chopping and cake making assistance) was absolutely amazing and so, so delicious! I’m completely full but there’s still food left and I really want to eat it! The struggle is real!

Successfully Buy And Order All Of My Christmas Presents In Time – I did this! I didn’t think it was going to be an issue but it’s always a slight worry when ordering things online that they won’t come in time but they all did and I’m so pleased, I actually managed to do all of my Christmas shopping many days in advance giving lots of opportunity to sit back and relax having completed the most stressful part of the Christmas period. My presents were also a complete success and I think everyone was pleased, although I felt kind of bad because I feel like everyone bought me much better presents than I bought for them, but you will hear all about the presents I got in the my Christmas present haul that I will be publishing tomorrow!! I’m really excited, it’s like a favourites post without being a favourites post! Obviously I’m going to have a favourites post as well!

Don’t Break Any Christmas Decorations – …….. So, I’m not going to lie, I did actually do this. But only once, which must be some kind of record for me when it comes to decorating the tree. I think it may be because there was an extra pair of hands this year and people seemed to be participating quite a lot so I didn’t get the opportunity to put as many decorations on as I sometimes do, which was probably a good thing for the decorations! The thing I broke was a red and white stripe-y bauble, and it was only the string off the top of it which was easily re-attachable.

Try And Not Be Scared About Opening My Christmas Presents – I did this! I successfully did this! I know it sounds crazy but I am actually really proud of myself, I hate to say I’m proud of myself but when I deal with levels of stress and anxiety like this and then I don’t I feel a sense of relief and happiness that I’ve managed not to feel that anxiety. It’s crazy because no one should be scared about opening presents, I go into more detail about my fear of present opening here. I feel a true sense of achievement and there really was nothing to fear anyway because I got loads of great Christmas presents and am really happy with all of them! I think this might have been the best year for Christmas presents I’ve had in quite a few years.

Make Breakfast On Christmas Morning – I did this, but only for me and my Mum, everyone else was happy to eat chocolate. I made beans, sausages and onion rings which was fine by me. I had intended to make pancakes, I’d even made sure my mum ordered all the spreads and syrups but no one was really in the mood and it was a bit pointless to make it if no one was going to eat it.

Win At Least One Game – To be honest I can’t actually remember if I won a game. We played two games of Pictionary, a game of cluedo and a couple of games of UNO. I might have one UNO but I can’t remember. My team was absolutely smashed in Pictionary – both times. Fun Fact: I can’t draw fast cartoon figures to save my life.

Successfully Hide My Secret Santa Identity – I didn’t really get the opportunity to hide my secret Santa identity because the way it was organised we all sat around in a circle and opened our presents and then told each other who we’d bought a present for so there were mere seconds between the person opening the present and me telling them I’d bought it for them – they didn’t say anything in those few seconds so does that count?

Remember All My Lines During My Christmas Show – I did do this! I didn’t ever have any doubt that I wouldn’t as I’m actually quite good at remembering my lines – better than I ever thought I would be – but if you’re an actor there’s always that slight fear that you won’t remember them and you’ll cause everything to fall apart and the show will be destroyed and it will be all your fault, but that didn’t happen. And it was an amazing show and I really enjoyed being part of it. I also learnt that I’m much better at make-up than I ever thought that I was!

Put Up The Christmas Tree – We obviously did this because what Christmas is complete without a Christmas tree? If you didn’t read my post all about my Christmas tree putting up ritual you can go and read it here

Go To Work Wearing Festive Clothing/Accessories – I did this last year and I did it again this year, there’s something about going to work dressed up all festive and spreading the Christmas cheer. This year I was working on Christmas Eve and so it was extra important that I was all festive, I just love going into shops and having everyone all dressed up. I know it sounds cheesy and ridiculous but I think it’s great and although I’m only a volunteer at the moment I don’t see why that should change anything. I still have a job as a staff member to be approachable and nice etc. and at Christmas everyone knows the Christmassy people are most likely to be approached.

Complete Blogmas Without Missing A Day – I obviously can’t judge yet whether I’m going to successfully complete Blogmas as I’m doing it up until the 31st but I didn’t blog yesterday. I had originally intended to but I didn’t really have any content or a good post to write and it was going to end up being a post just for the sake of a post and no one was going to read it because it was Christmas day (not that I write posts for the views) and I hadn’t scheduled a post because I’m so unorganised which means I was going to have to try and sneak off to write a post and I didn’t really want to do that because I was enjoying spending time with my family and I didn’t want to interrupt that to write a blog post that my heart and mind weren’t properly going to be engaged with.

There we have it, my successes and failures of Christmas time, I hope you found this enjoyable and interesting – if you did then please give it a like! Let me know about your Christmas experience and if you had a Christmas bucket list let me know how you did in completing it. If you aren’t already then please click the follow button, it would mean a lot to me and you would get all of my new posts straight into your reader! Win, win!

If you wish to get in touch please do not hesitate to do so using my email – aninspiredteen@gmail.com

Merry Christmas!

Inspired Teen 🙂

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Spread Christmas Cheer

Hey guys, the day we’ve all been blogging about for the past 24 posts is finally, almost upon us! Tomorrow is Christmas day!! Which means that today is Christmas eve and what a day I’ve had!

I saw my Dad early this morning to exchange presents with each other. Then I went to work, left work early to go and perform in my Christmas show. Got to the theatre, got ready, had some photos taken for promotional reasons and then actually performed in the show. Dashed home on the bus, had a quick lunch, brushed my teeth and then straight out the door again but only this time to watch the show rather than be in it. After the show I came home, had dinner, watched a bit of television, wrapped up some presents and now I’m writing this. And I still have more presents to wrap but the sellotape got stolen from me… 😦

I hope you’ve all had a good Christmas eve, let me know in the comments what you did with your day.

Today’s post, because it’s Christmas TOMORROW is going to be a bit of a laid-back post, I’m not going to give you Christmas tips or anything. Just kind of have a general discussion.

The main thing I wanted to talk about in this post is to spread Christmas cheer. It’s not too late for it, you may have read in some of my previous Blogmas post throughout the month that I don’t celebrate Christmas for the religious reasons, I celebrate it for the way it brings everyone together. It promotes kindness and peace. So make sure to share the kindness and peace with others, spread the Christmas cheer. Even if all you do is wake up tomorrow morning and text someone you haven’t spoken to in a while to wish them a merry Christmas. Or if you offer to make the breakfast so that someone else doesn’t have to do it. Whatever it is make sure you have as many people as possible feeling festive tomorrow.

Today, through being in my Christmas show I spread Christmas cheer because everyone that was coming to see it was seeing it because it’s a Christmas show and it’s Christmas tomorrow. And I have to say from watching it as an audience member later on in the day it really did help me to feel festive and cheerful. Another thing I did was wear a Christmas jumper and headband. I know this sounds silly but you’ll be amazed at what a little Christmas merchandise can do at this time of year, the bus driver that was driving my bus today had a Santa hat on and it was amazing how simply seeing her hat made me feel suddenly festive and excited. So don’t dismiss what a little Christmas outfit can do for the people around you.

It’s a bit late in the day to be spreading the Christmas cheer but just make sure to try your best tomorrow to ensure everyone around you has a fabulous day, don’t ruin it by being grumpy or a spoil sport by refusing to join in on any of the games. Take a risk, not a dangerous one obviously but give something a try that you might ordinarily avoid, it is Christmas.

I’m going to leave this post here, I know it’s much shorter than my posts usually are but I really wanted to post something on Christmas Eve and I have a lot to do before tomorrow, my sister and I are also having a TV marathon so I don’t want to delay that (otherwise I won’t be getting any sleep). I may or may not post a little something tomorrow but please don’t be expecting anything. I have posted every day so far this month and I feel like on Christmas day everyone deserves a day off. I might be compelled towards writing something or I might be too busy to find the time.

Whatever happens blog wise I hope you all have the best of the best Christmas, I don’t say it a lot because I don’t want to sound too big-headed but I really do appreciate every single one of you that take the time to read, like and comment on my blog as well as follow me – it’s times like this when I’m particularly grateful for everything I have and I am so grateful to have all of you. Do let me know how your Christmas was in the comments after Christmas. I hope you all get what you asked for and that your day is filled with love and happiness (so cheesy I know). Enjoy yourselves! Join in on the games and family fun! Paaaarrrrrrtttttyyyy!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Inspired Teen 🙂

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Christmas Tree Ritual

Hey guys, the much anticipated day has finally arrived! The day that I put up my Christmas tree! Woo! Not only is it the much anticipated day for me personally in my life but I’ve also been talking about writing a Blogmas post on it, pretty much since December 1st. I’m not going to include any photos of my Christmas tree or the Christmas tree decorating experience here in this post because I’m scheduling it ahead of time, but if you go and check out my Instagram later on there might be some photos up there, I’ll try and take some but in previous cases photos of my Christmas tree haven’t come out very well.

Anyway, enough of that, let’s get into the post.

My Mum really likes putting up the Christmas tree, you could potentially even say it’s her favourite part of Christmas – let’s be fair, it is a pretty great part of Christmas – we have three boxes worth of Christmas decorations that go on our tree and although it’s kind of your average, almost ceiling height Christmas tree it’s very narrow, there isn’t actually all that much space to put all these decorations. Because of my Mum’s love for decorating the Christmas tree, she has specific rules when it comes to putting the decorations on, these are rules that anyone who wishes to help put up the tree must know before they start, otherwise they’re wasting their time because my Mum will just rearrange everything.

So, first things first is the big baubles that we put on the lower branches, the reason for this apparently being that they’re too heavy to put further up the tree and take up too much space for the other decorations, so we have, maybe, three rows of branches with big, heavy baubles on them, as well as the other big hanging decorations that we have, we have some metal gingerbread men which are quite big – I’ll try and post some pictures of our big decorations on insta later.

Another rule that’s important to know before you start putting things on the tree, this rule being that you can’t put anything the my Mum doesn’t specifically really like, and definitely not anything she hates towards the front of the tree where it’s visible, any decorations that she doesn’t like can go on the tree but they have to go at the back of the tree facing the wall and on the lowest branches so they can’t easily be seen.

Before I continue, I just want to say that I am in no way using this post to have a rant at my Mum or cast her in a bad light, although I’m making her seem like a really demanding, controlling Christmas-tree-putting-up weirdo I actually love her for it – as well as for many other reasons of course – this has been my life, this is my experience of putting up a Christmas tree every year and I will hate the day when I have to put up my Christmas tree and she’s not there to tell me the ‘correct’ way to do it, although I’m pretty sure her strict Christmas-tree-decorating rules are imbedded in me pretty strongly.

Okay, moving on, after the big baubles have gone on the tree, we move onto the medium sized things that can take up the middle section of the tree and as most of our Christmas decorations are of medium size it works quite well. But we still go by the rule that we can’t put anything that my Mum doesn’t like towards the front of the tree. We decorate the whole tree, front to back, bottom to top (I say that because we always start decorating the tree from the bottom and working our way up).

Another Christmas tree decorating rule is that we can’t have things of the same colour next to each other or too close together, for example, you couldn’t have a purple bauble and then the exact same purple bauble on the branch directly next to it, you also can’t have a red bauble and then a hanging Santa next to each other because they’re the same colour. As well as this, you can’t have too many decorations of the same style on the tree in favour of a more varied collection. For example, we have some pretty little diamond hanging decorations which are made of plastic and reflect the Christmas tree lights really well, however, you couldn’t have 15 of them on the tree and only 2 of something else on the tree, it has to be evened out as much as possible. But we also can’t put too much of a decoration my mum doesn’t like on the tree – it’s getting complicated isn’t it??

Another rule is: no tinsel. My Mum doesn’t like tinsel on trees, so we place it around the house instead.

After we’ve finished with the middle section of the tree we do the stop section, we have many little decorations: little baubles; little diamonds; little gingerbread decorations; little angels. We also have some little snowmen that are really cute and they’ve all got cute coloured scarfs on and I once named them after the members of One Direction (did I not mention that I’m weird?).

And finally, after all of that, we put the final finishing touch – the big glitttery, golden star that sits on the top of our tree. My Mum usually does that one.

Then we all sit back, relax and admire the tree. All the hard work finished and nothing left to do but to look forward to Christmas!

There we have it! My Christmas-tree-putting-up ritual. Isn’t it great?! It took my siblings and I many years to learn the rules but we finally managed it! A final note, I can’t put up a Christmas tree without breaking at least three decorations. Oops.

Okay, if you liked this post please give it a like – for me, because it’s Christmas – follow me if you aren’t already for many more posts and make sure to leave a comment down below telling about your Christmas-tree-putting-up experience.

If you wish to get in touch, do not hesitate to use my e-mail – aninspiredteen@gmail.com

Merry Christmas!

Inspired Teen 🙂

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My Typical Christmas Experience

Hey guys, it’s five days until Christmas but many more Blogmas things to be discussed!! Many, many more! I have officially finished my Christmas shopping and with a Christmas show and tree decorating tomorrow, I guess you could say I’m on my way to being Christmas ready!

Today’s post is going to be about my Christmas traditions, everyone has them and they are all different, so I wanted to share mine.

I’m a huge fan of traditions, something that you always do at a specific time and it can never be broken. Something that you only share with certain people – family and friends – something that can’t be replicated by others and even if others do something similar, it will never be the same.

I guess the first Christmas tradition is that we always put our Christmas tree up on the 21st of December, according to my Mum it’s because it’s the shortest day of the year. I don’t really care what the reason for it is, I just like that we put it up on a specific date every single year. Tomorrow is the Christmas tree decorating day! Tomorrow is the day when I write a post about how I decorate my Christmas tree. I’m so excited! Christmas trees are so beautiful!

At the end of the day on the 24th we all go and place our presents to each other underneath the Christmas tree, my Mum always puts presents from other people outside of the family under the tree for us, we never go to bed on Christmas eve before placing the presents under the tree, I always get really excited because I get to see mine and everyone else’s sitting under the tree and then get excited before going to sleep – not that I often get to sleep because I’m too excited, also, this year my sister and I plan on staying up all night watching films and TV shows, it’s going to be fabulous!

On Christmas morning, we all wait until each other has woken up, sometimes it’s almost impossible!! Literally, almost impossible, we also have a rule that no one can go downstairs into the living room until everyone is up and about to open presents. That can get quite hard as well because you get thirsty or hungry but you also really want to see the presents and you know if you get down there and see all of the presents you’ll be absolutely full of insane excitement!

When everyone gets up we all go down there and sit down, my sister and I usually in a onesie, and we designate someone to hand out the presents and then we all open our presents, creating a massive pile of wrapping paper on the floor.

This year I plan on making pancakes for breakfast, as well as gingerbread to eat throughout the day, as well as apple crumble for dessert after dinner. We don’t typically have a very exciting breakfast on Christmas but that’s mainly because everyone’s too busy stuffing themselves with chocolates and sweets etc.

I’m going to phone my best friend on Christmas, just like I did last year, simply to wish each other Merry Christmas and what we got for Christmas and what the rest of our plans for that day are etc. Once I’ve got off the phone with my BFF my family and I are going to play games around the table, we have so many games and I’m so excited to have a day indoors playing games and catching up with my family. We might even get to watch a film in the evening after or during dessert.

At some point in the day I’m going to go up to my room and put away all of my presents, I don’t expect to get many but I seem to have got into the habit of keeping my room really tidy and clean, it’s amazing the difference it has made to my mood and motivation, I never walk into my room and think it’s untidy and needs cleaning and I don’t get stressed out about being in my room anymore, I put things away as soon as they need putting away and don’t let them build up and in a strange way I feel healthier because of it, so I don’t want to develop bad habits over Christmas, especially because on the 27th my family and I are all going to our friends for the night and I don’t want my room to be messy in a way that it prevents me from packing or is a nightmare when I get home, too many times in my life have I gone away and had to come back to a messy and stressful bedroom.

The friends which I speak of are the family friends that we spend Christmas with, we have many traditions when we go to their house (they used to come here but then they moved to a bigger house), we play this amazing game called taboo which if you haven’t heard of you should totally check it out because it’s so much fun and definitely easy if you have a massive group of people. It’s really funny and really energetic and gets you really hyped. We also like to play this other game, which doesn’t actually have a name so we call it The Game and basically, what you do, is you get a hat or a bowl or something, and loads of little pieces of paper (about the size of those small sticky notes that you use to mark your place in books/textbooks) and you write down the names of characters or people. For example, Donald Trump or Edward Cullen, you might have to decide on your own rules. But you write down the name of people, real or fiction, and then fold up all the pieces of paper and place it in the bowl/hat – when I say ‘you’ I mean everyone playing the game should have written out a decided amount of names, then you pick your teams (so it’s useful to have even numbers) and pass the bowl/hat around, you set a timer of about a minute and a half and then the teams take turns, one of the people in a particularly team, say, Team A; so, Team A would have the hat and, we’ll say there are three members, of the three members one of them is going to be the ‘describer’ and the other two the ‘guessers’, the ‘describer’ will turn on the timer and will take a piece of paper out of the hat, they’ll look at the name and quickly start describing the person but without using rhymes or body m0vements and it’s up to the rest of the team to guess who the person is, if it gets guessed correctly the person puts the piece of paper aside and moves onto another piece until the timer runs out. There are many different rules that you can make up yourself if you decide to play it.

As well as playing games and opening presents with our friends we also have our proper, official ‘Christmas dinner’ which is always really exciting!

I think that’s it, those are my Christmas traditions! If you enjoyed this post please give it a like! Make sure to get involved in the Christmas spirit by leaving your own Christmas traditions down below! If you don’t follow me already, make sure to go and do that for many more posts throughout December and 2017!

If you wish to get in touch do not hesitate to use my e-mail – aninspiredteen@gmail.com

Merry Christmas!

Inspired Teen 🙂

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What’s Too Much Decorating?

Hey guys, I’m here again to talk about other enlightening Christmas-themed topics! Can you believe there’s only 12 days left of Blogmas? For some people only 5 posts left – going on the basis that they’ve already uploaded today – unlike moi! Don’t worry though, I’m still full of ideas and exciting posts to write for you in the next 12 days! 12 days left of 2016… enjoy them while you can folks!

Today’s topic is going to be about Christmas decorating, around this time of year you see a lot of decoratons around the town, city or village you live in, you see lots of houses with their own personal decorations hanging on the front of their houses. You see people’s Christmas trees through their windows. You see a whole collection of Christmas-themed things going on, so what I’m going to be talking about today is how much decorating is taking it too far.

Personally, I am not too much of a fan of taking it over-the-top and decorating the entire outside of your house, starting your decorating at the end of August to get it done by Christmas, I’m not saying that I don’t think it can look nice and I think the dedication is something to be awarded. I remember last year my Mum and I watched some trashy reality TV show about people who decorated their houses grotto style, it took them ages and ages, cost loads of money in electricity bills, cost loads of money actually purchasing the decorations and people even went to see them turn their lights on because there were so many of them and it was such a big display, I don’t think this is a normal level of decorating, I know lots of people do it and I think I would probably notice the difference if people didn’t do it. I have to admit, driving down the road during the night seeing a few houses decorated over-the-top it makes me feel very festive and right now I don’t feel very festive, however, I think the level of inconvenience for neighbours of these houses makes it harder to appreciate it, as someone who for years lived next door to someone with quite a decent amount of Christmas lights that they kept on late into the night, flashing through my window and preventing me from sleeping, I look at these lights on people’s houses and am brought back to those horrible, sleepless nights.

It upsets me when people don’t put up enough decorations, I sound like such an ungrateful and judgemental person, so demanding and specific about things, I promise I’m not, just when it comes to Christmas and decorating I have ideas of what my ideal perfect Christmas decorating would be, sometimes I hear of people that can’t even be bothered to put up their Christmas trees because they don’t really have the time or they’re not really that fussed, to me, Christmas trees are almost all of Christmas, other than spending that time with your family and the presents, I can’t get excited about Christmas until my tree’s up, I can’t imagine how one enjoys Christmas without a tree, it takes away all of the enjoyment and celebration.

When I’m decorating the house I drape tinsel everywhere, on my mirror, photo frames, I drape tinsel on the mirrors around the house, it’s all tinsel and tree decorations for me. As well as a few Christmas fairy lights on the windows, that is enough decorating for me. It’s enough to get excited about Christmas but not too much that the effort of decorating my house for Christmas is more of an inconvenience than Christmas is worth, I can’t imagine Christmas being so time-consuming that I can’t be bothered to celebrate it, the white lights hanging in my window and the Christmas tree in my living is more than enough to have me feeling festive and all warm and cosy inside, waiting for the exciting day.

The next subject we have to talk about is town decorations and shop decorations. I don’t know about other people but I find supermarket decorations really unpleasant, it’s not so much that they’re over-the-top although that could be discussed as true, but I just find them kind of ‘stressful’ I guess? Stressful isn’t the right word, kind of difficult to look at? They just feel really fake, they’re usually made out of cardboard and have kind of cheesy supermarket jokes on them, they’re just awful, the only slightly redeeming feature seems to be the pretty Christmas tree that they put up by the exit, however, it doesn’t lessen your discomfort as you walk around the store doing your shopping – I can’t really bring to mind any Christmas decorations in supermarkets that aren’t really terrible, other than the Christmas decorations actually for sale, the only time it’s bearably festive is down the actual festive aisle. Other than that I can’t stand it.

I really like town Christmas decorations, the way they hang off lampposts and across your heads, as well as the way people hang Christmas trees sideways from buildings – that always makes me laugh – my favourite part of the towns Christmas decorations is the way it lights up the town in the dark, of course that’s what lampposts do but Christmas lights make it even brighter and slightly more relaxing and safer, if you know what I mean? Without making it sound like I live in a complete dump, you get some very creepy guys around my town centre when it’s late in the evening, so when I’m walking through the town in the dark after late drama rehearsals to get to my car you can sometimes run into slightly unpleasant people shouting comments at you – otherwise known as ‘abuse’ or ‘harassment’ – so when the Christmas lights make it feel safer it’s a lot more pleasant to walk around, even if it’s not any safer or pleasant and it’s just in your mind. Not to mention the big Christmas tree that’s always put in the centre of your town making you feel all festive. I’ve never encountered a town with too much decorations but if I ever do, I will make sure to let you know!

I’m going to end this post here, sorry if it was a bit ramble-y, if you enjoyed it or related to it in some way please make sure to give this post a like! Feel free to leave a comment below letting me know how much decorating you think is too much. If you aren’t already, go and follow me for more festive posts up until the 31st December and many more posts planned for January!

If you wish to get in touch, do not hesitate to do so using my e-mail – aninspiredteen@gmail.com

Merry Christmas!

Inspired Teen 🙂

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Celebrate Christmas Your Way

Hey guys, I started writing this post a minute ago and then my laptop freaked out and so now I have to start again… Today I studied GCSE economics for 8 hours! 8 whole hours! And right about now all I want to do is crawl into bed and go to sleep, but instead, I’m sat at my desk wrapped in a blanket writing this post – which is great, of course! I’ve started using my desk a lot more than I used to – once upon a time I used to only use it for dumping things on, it was the only thing in my room that was ever messy, now I like to think it’s pretty clear and organised. Anyway, I try and treat my blog professionally by writing at a desk to give me a kind office-y feel, it also stops me getting lazy and distracted on YouTube!

Does anyone else feel like it’s not properly Christmas yet? Maybe it’s just me, I always struggle to actually get in the mood/spirit for the exciting event, I get really excited months before and then as it gets nearer and nearer I lose all sense of excitement, it’s strange. It’s kind of like when you’ve got really high expectations of something or you’ve been daydreaming/fantasizing about it for so long and then it actually happens and it doesn’t at all live up to your expectations. I’m not saying Christmas isn’t living up to my expectations, I’m just not properly hyped yet, it’s probably something to do with our still lack of a Christmas tree – don’t worry, it’s going up on Wednesday. I also haven’t wrapped any presents yet, although I might do that sooner rather than later to get my spirits up a bit more.

Anyway, after the biggest intro ever, I’m actually going to write the post – and maybe even an actual intro, rather than whatever everything above is!

Today’s post is going to be about how Christmas is what you make it, Christmas is what you want it to be, you celebrate it the way you think is right, it’s down to your own interpretation. As someone who doesn’t celebrate Christmas for the religious reasons and someone who is very close to their family all year round, it’s very hard for me to really properly understand how I should ‘celebrate’ Christmas. Obviously I know that it’s a time to spend with your family, hopefully our family will be hanging out together and playing games all day! Which will be great! But it won’t be all that unusual, it’s not that unusual for us to play games together. We also might watch a film – if we can all agree on one that is.

When I was younger, like lots of young kids, I saw Christmas as about only the presents. I was a bit of an obnoxious child and didn’t really see the excitement in spending time with my family, we did that all the time anyway so why should Christmas be any different? We eat nice food all the time, while should Christmas be particularly special? I didn’t, however, get presents all the time (and still don’t) and when I was younger and cheaper to buy presents for I used to get a lot of presents, as did my brother and sister, so when we came down in the morning there would be so many presents sitting under the tree and obviously I knew they weren’t all mine but the excitement of knowing that all of this was exciting new stuff to be used in my house was always one of the greatest things. As I got older I realised that although the presents are great and although I love giving and receiving presents – there’s more to life, and to Christmas, than just material objects. As I’ve got older I’ve cared less about presents and more about the opportunity to see my family in a way that it’s unusual for us to do now, we’re all growing up and going out and doing our own thing. We’re not in the same place at the same time hardly ever anymore, it’s rare for us all to have dinner together and we never have breakfast together anymore, which is fine; it’s just life. But Christmas is the time of year when I can truly spend time with my family, catch-up and just have fun with them. It happens so little now. Whilst I like the presents and it means a lot to me that people want to buy me presents, family is more important. It always was more important but I was too young to properly make the connection.

I hope it’s not just me, I’m sure there are other people who’s days aren’t all that different on Christmas day other than the fact that they’ve got a massive tree in their house with loads of presents underneath it. What we’ve got to remember is that one day, everything will be different, enjoy the Christmas you have while you can, make memories that will last forever, take a risk and make some compromises. Christmas is the day when you have to let go of your preferences, forget about your dislikes and just go with the flow. You never know how much fun you’ll end up having. That’s what I plan on doing this year, going with the flow, seeing where it takes me, I too often turn things down because I’m not really in the mood for them or don’t think I’ll like them and this year I’m going to be a rebel, let nature take it’s course blah blah blah. I think one of the things that hold people back at Christmas – that slightly halt the family fun – is that everyone is too strict on what they’ll take part in and not take part in, what film they’ll watch and what film they definitely won’t watch and it’s things like these that cause you to get nowhere with your Christmas day. You spend three hours looking for a film to watch and then settle on nothing because you can’t be bothered to look any longer.

Despite everything I’m saying about Christmas being about family, I think one of the things that makes Christmas worth it, that makes Christmas truly special is that you’ve got to decide what’s special about Christmas for you don’t just give in to society and celebrate Christmas with and how those people in the movies do, if Christmas is special to you because you can go for a nice long walk in the morning in dead silence because everyone else is tucked away in their houses drinking cups of coffee or hot chocolate and unwrapping presents, then go for that walk, if it’s going into the dead town centre and taking some photographs – go and do that, if it’s having a nice meal with all of your extended family – do that, if it’s having your friends round and dancing round the house to Christmas songs before settling down and having the longest Christmas movie marathon ever then who’s stopping you? If you want to go to church and say some prayers and sing some hymns and celebrate the true meaning of Christmas, then please, I encourage you. The fact is, if you’re only celebrating Christmas the way other people do, and the way you think you should, you’re going to have an awful Christmas, if you celebrate it your own way, the way you want to, the way that will make you happy, who cares what others think. Do remember though, that if for some reason you can’t celebrate Christmas the way you want to, either because you’re too young to have all that independence or you can’t afford it, or your too nervous, whatever the reason, go with the flow, make the best of the situation, it’s better to try and hope something good happens than to not try and know nothing good will happen, or that’s how I think of it anyway…

I’m going to go now, do that crawling into bed and going to sleep thing that I mentioned earlier. I really hope this post was useful or enjoyable to you in some way – if it was please make sure to give it a like! Please feel free to get the Christmas conversation going in the comments by letting me know what your plans for Christmas day and the days surrounding it are! If you’re not following me already, you’re welcome to do so – I will be posting a festive-themed post everyday for the rest of the month and lots of other exciting posts in the New Year!

If you wish to get in touch for any reason, do not hesitate to contact me using my e-mail – aninspiredteen@gmail.com

Merry Christmas!

Inspired Teen 🙂

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Who To Get Gifts

Hey guys, hope you’re all okay! I lost a follower today… maybe it’s someone trying to tell me how rubbish my Blogmas is! Haha! Sorry, whoever it was, if I insulted you in some way or if my blog became so boring you had to unfollow me! I don’t hold it against you!

Anyway, I’ve been doing some studying today which has been nice and refreshing as I’m very far behind, I’m trying to reach a specific checkpoint by the end of tomorrow so I can relax a bit over the holidays rather than stressing about exams and studying. Let’s see if I actually get the work done.

Today’s post is going to be about who you should get gifts for, the reason for this is because last year I got a bit carried away and bought a lot of people presents, people I don’t even speak to anymore and I found myself thinking this year what a waste it was, I guess I was trying to buy friends kind of, I thought that if I bought them a present they would see that I cared about them and wanted to be friends with them, but you can’t buy friends in that way and if you can they won’t really be your friends. So, basically, I decided to enlighten you with this post so you don’t make the same mistakes I did.

I’m going to start by saying, don’t get anyone a gift if you don’t want to. I know this might sound a bit harsh and you’re probably thinking, “but I have to get that certain family member a present because otherwise they’ll be annoyed.”, but you really don’t have to. You’re not obligated to buy anyone a present. If it’s a particularly difficult person, like a disapproving aunt or a grumpy gran then just say you didn’t have the money, if they don’t understand then that’s their problem. Then you’ve saved the money and not hurt their feelings. You should only buy presents for people you care about and truly want to be in your life and who make the effort to be in yours. I’ve realised thoughout the years – and specifically this year, but you can read more about that at the end of December – that some people really aren’t worth your time and it’s not worth putting in the effort. It doesn’t matter how many texts you send them, how many converations you try to have, how many presents you buy them, they’re not going to change. If they can’t treat you like you’re worth their time then they don’t deserve that from you. Friendships and relationships don’t work unless both parties are putting effort in. It’s pretty miserable being in a one person friendship. By all means give them a card, a card is a simple thing, I give basically everybody cards, but a present is much more than that; or I see it that way. A present is not only a nice thing to give to someone but it’s a sign of caring and effort. It shows you that they like having you in their lives and they appreciate you. Obviously if there’s someone important in your life and they can’t afford to get you a present or you them then that’s different, it will be understood that they don’t have any money.

If you’re worrying about buying presents for people who don’t make any effort to be in your life they’re really not worth the money or effort. Maybe not getting them a present will make them realise how you feel and how un-active they’ve been in your life this year. It’s hard to deal with because you know that you could upset them by not getting them a present, and being a nice person you obviously don’t want to upset anyone but if they’ve upset you or completely ignored you this year are they really worth it? I’m not saying be horrible to someone, I would never suggest being horrible to someone, you always have to keep the moral high ground and be nice to them, but not buying someone a present does not make you a bad person. Also, the less money you spend on undeserving people the more money you have to spend on the people that truly matter to you, the people who have truly put the effort in throughout the year. The way I see it, presents have to be earned. This may sound a bit harsh, but people don’t get to treat you like nothing and then expect a present from you. That’s not how society works, or it shouldn’t be.

I love to buy presents, I love the excitement of wrapping presents up for your friends and family, the anticipation of them opening the presents, the smiles on their faces etc. but only for deserving people. I know I’m basically parroting the same thing over and over again but it took me a long time to realise what I have now realised. You just don’t get the same kind of enjoyment out of giving someone who doesn’t really appreciate your effort a present, so why worry yourself? The worse thing is when you get someone a present and all they really do is scowl at you and say thank you.

If you’re getting someone a present who hasn’t been the nicest of late, or you’ve had quite a few arguments with them throughout the year then I’m not saying don’t get them a present, in some cases this is the ideal time to show them you still care, some people struggle to proper get to grips with the fact that people like them, that people care enough to hang out with them and sometimes they behave badly and can’t really except any fault for it and it’s really frustrating and upsetting, but inside they feel guilty about it, for longer than you might realise, but you still love them, get them a present and tell them that you still care. Obviously presents aren’t the only thing that show someone you care but don’t not get a present for them this year simply because you’re not on good terms at this specific moment, I’m only saying not to get presents for if you really don’t want to, if you feel like they’re undeserving, if you feel that way then it’s probably because it’s true.

At the end of the day, it’s your money and you can do what you want with it, but money is a precious thing no matter how much of it you have and wasting it on people that aren’t worth it is just a waste, there are so many things money can do and giving a present to someone who hasn’t been nice to you or has completely ignored is really not worth the money. I’m not telling you, you shouldn’t and maybe getting them a present will change their ways, but it’s also possible that not getting them a present will make them change their ways. Basically, what I’m saying is; it’s your choice but don’t feel forced or pressured into buying or doing something you don’t want to simply because of how others might view you.

I hope this post was useful to you! If it was please give it a like and follow me if you aren’t already for more posts throughout Blogmas and the new year!

If you wish to get in touch you can use my e-mail – aninspiredteen@gmail.com

Merry Christmas!

Inspired Teen 🙂

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Stupid ‘Christmassy’ Things

Hey guys, can you believe that it’s now less than ten days until Christmas?? Ten days is always when it feels like Christmas is truly near. It’s still not properly dawned on me that Christmas is so soon even though I’ve sent of Christmas cards and almost completed present buying, Christmas never feels like Christmas until I’ve put up the tree – no, I still haven’t put up my Christmas tree.

I feel like my Blogmas is more like the Blogmas of the Grinch than someone who actually likes Christmas, my posts are always including anti-Christmas rants etc. I think the reason for this is because although I love Christmas, I believe there are many flaws to it, nothing and no one is perfect. So there’s a lot to say. I feel like people ignore the not so good aspects of Christmas because they get so caught up in the wave of excitement for Christmas.

Anyway, today’s post is going to be about stupid and silly things that people associate with Christmas even though they’re there all year around and shouldn’t be associated with Christmas. I’m mostly going to list things, but might go into more detail for things I feel particularly strongly about.

Animals:

Robins – These birds are really pretty and they still exist outside of December. I see them all year around, but stupidly I still associate them with winter/Christmas even though they’re just birds.

Polar Bears – I got a Christmas card with a polar bear on it this year which is what made me add it into the post. People should be thinking about polar bears a lot more often than just at Christmas because they’re actually becoming or are already an endangered species because of climate change, climate change is a real thing, people need to open their eyes.

Reindeers – Okay, this is slightly understandable because of Santa’s reindeers, but they’re still real creatures that exist, they’re not fiction, they’re not vampires or werewolves, they’re just animals that sadly have been burdened with the association of Christmas and Santa.

Food:

Quality Streets – Although I’m a vegan I still think it’s stupid to have chocolates associated with Christmas, when I wasn’t vegan I used to associate them with Christmas because we would always get them at Christmas time and I remember always opening the lid and taking a deep breath of the lovely chocolatey Christmassy smell, but surely it’s bad business for quality streets? Surely Nestle want them to be bought all year round?

Toblerones

Brussels Sprouts

Roasted Potatoes

Random Things:

Fairy lights – We have quite a lot of fairy lights around our house because they’re really pretty, I have a lot in my bedroom and it really annoys me when people come into my room and assume that I’ve already put up my Christmas decorations. In our dining room we have some star lights in the window and they look really pretty but people always think they’re Christmas decorations when they see them even though they’re just pretty lights. I don’t see why we can only have pretty lights up at Christmas, surely we put them up at Christmas because they’re pretty? There’s no reason why we can’t have them up all year round.

Snow – I was having a conversation with my Mum earlier about the weird things associated with Christmas and she brought this up and wondered whether people who are currently enjoying summer, like Australia, have snow on their Christmas cards and so we googled Australian Christmas cards and discovered that in fact, on Christmas cards in Australia people have pictures of beaches – it was really interesting and sociologically eye-opening. Anyway, here in Britain it never, ever snows at Christmas, if it snows it will usually be in February, so why we associate snow with Christmas is beyond me.

Snowmen – The same as above really…

Gloves, hats, scarves etc. – For some reason I get the feeling that people associate dressing up warmly with Christmas, presumably because of the association of snow with Christmas.

Glitter – It’s well known that lots of Christmassy things have glitter on them: baubles; Christmas cards; wrapping paper; Christmas jumpers etc. but I don’t see why we can’t use glitter at other times of the year without worrying that we’re being too festive, it’s crazy. I really like glitter, which is obviously why I use it all year round, but as with fairy lights – people use it at Christmas because it’s nice. But I don’t understand why anything sparkly or glittery is associated with Christmas. It’s almost like anything pretty, bright or sparkly can only been seen around Christmas, the rest of the time we have to be miserable and live in dull greys and browns the entire time. I think not.

I know this was quite a short post today, I’m quite tight on schedule at the moment because of everything Christmassy that’s going on.

If you enjoyed this post please give it a like! If you have anything else that’s weirdly Christmassy that I haven’t mentioned please leave it in the comments! Make sure to follow me if you aren’t already for more Blogmas posts up until the 31st of December and lots of exciting posts planned for the New Year.

If you want to get in touch please use my e-mail – aninspiredteen@gmail.com

Merry Christmas!

Inspired Teen 🙂

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