Hi everyone! How have you all spent Boxing Day this year? For me, it's been a day of rest & recuperation. For many people, dealing with Christmas can be a super stressful thing, however it takes its toll especially when you have a mental or physical illness. I get completely overwhelmed on Christmas Day. Everything is a little too busy and somewhat chaotic for me! I'm not saying that I don't have a lot of fun, but it's just tough! It's a challenge for me to not worry about how others are perceiving me, like I worry that somehow they can tell that I'm stressed, that they can almost read my thoughts through my facial expressions or something, and then it just makes me more anxious than I already am. I get nervous that they are going to comment on it, as in the past I've had the whole 'cheer up, it's Christmas!' sort of phrases thrown at me. I also feel bad because I don't want to dampen anyone else's day, so I'm constantly stuck between should I try to join in with the festivities or should I keep out of the way? My brain is on overdrive all day, and its very draining. Therefore by Boxing Day, I am exhausted! All I want to do is sleep and lounge around consuming a ridiculous amount of chocolate and not having to do much. But at my house, we traditionally have a buffet today, so my house is once again busy! I spent the day finding ways to keep myself as relaxed as possible, and I thought I'd blog about how I spent my day! It's going to be a bit of chatty post but I hope you all still enjoy reading :)
It's a shame that I spent most of the day upstairs away from my family, but you have to put your own well-being first sometimes! I had a great day though, doing a lot of little things to keep myself in the Christmas spirit, and also to help myself to relax :) So, what did I do?
Slept in until after lunchtime
So I didn't start my day off until around 1pm, and I'm not even sorry! Despite being really exhausted last night, my mind refused to switch off when I got into bed. I tried watching a movie, because sometimes that helps make me sleepy, but nope... my body was having none of it! I kept overthinking about the day, wondering if everyone liked their presents from me, etc. How annoying! I didn't wake up until 1 so I must have needed all that sleep, and I'm glad that had a lie-in because it made me wake up a lot less groggy than I did on Christmas Day. Something else that I did to make myself feel better today is to get dressed. It probably sounds like something simple and not very important to some of you, but I always wear PJ's at home unless I'm going out somewhere that day, so getting dressed made me feel more motivated to not just lay in my bed all day watching movies.
Lit a Christmas-scented Candle
A couple of years ago now, I discovered a festive scent from Yankee Candle that is just amazing! If you're a fan of sweet scents, then you'll very likely love this candle too :) I treat myself to a small jar candle of 'Snowflake Cookie' a few weeks ago as one of the stalls in my local market had them reduced for Christmas. It's been a challenge not to burn it already, but I wanted to save it! It smells so goood that I almost want to eat it, haha :D Here are the fragrance ingredients in Snowflake Cookie: fluffy marshmallow, whipped vanilla icing, warm cinnamon, nutmeg, sweet buttercream & sugar cookie. It's delicious and reminds me of the scent of something baking in the oven almost. The candle itself is also a gorgeous pink shade, and it just brightened up my bedroom today! I would happily use this candle all year around too :)
Snacked on chocolate throughout the day
I have eaten way too much chocolate today, but it's so hard to stop when you have a big tub of some of your most favourite chocolates sitting in your bedroom! I have devoured so many Quality Street chocolates, even though I put the lid back on and put the tub out of sight to try to save them... let's just say it didn't work XD I wish I was better at arts & crafts because the shiny, translucent wrappers of Quality Street chocolates are really pretty, and I always think to myself when I've eaten them all... what a waste! I should keep them and make little stained-glass window artsy things with my nieces and nephews next year. Chocolate tastes amazing and has ingredients in it that helps our bodies release 'feel good' hormones, so everyone needs to eat some at Christmas time!
Played on Sims 2
On Christmas Eve, I was bored and couldn't sleep so I decided to have a play on my good old Sims 2 PC game and omgosh, I now have the Sims bug again & can't stop playing! That's what always happens with me and Sims, I don't play it for months and months, even years sometimes, and then spot it and think I'll just have a little go on it again, and then I'm hooked for ages! I should probably upgrade to Sims 3 or 4 but I love my old game, and its also nostalgic to play. It makes me think back to my early teens when I would make my crushes and me on Sims, or my favourite celebs and me. We'd get married and have the perfect house and everything! Everyone did this so don't even say you didn't hahaha! I get way too into my game, making all these diverse personalities and storylines for each of my families. Sometimes I even have to write it down so I don't forget who's having an relationship with who, or which sim is having an affair, etc. I'm such a dork! Focusing on my game though today was a great way to relax, and it helped me drown out the noise too :)
Did some Christmas colouring
I'm so happy that I have a Christmas colouring book; I really enjoy colouring in it! And even though it doesn't really have a relaxing affect on me like it does for others, it does help to improve my mood, and helps me get into a more focused mindset :) The colouring book that I have is called 'I heart Colouring Christmas' and is by a company called Busters Books. I really like the design of the cover, with the heart being in the actual shape but filled with festive images like snowflakes, baubles and snowman! It's really bright and shiny, with a mixture of silver, green and red. The book itself is a small square shape so the pictures are not too big, which is great for when you just want to do a little colouring. If you're like me, you can't not finish colouring an entire page in a colouring book once you've started, so with the pages being small it makes that a much easier task to complete! It has an array of Christmassy themed illustrations to colour, and my favourites are the snow-covered Scandinavian style houses, the fairy on top of the tree & the snow globes with adorable ballerinas inside :) Do you have a festive colouring book?
Listened to festive songs & then some
Listening to music is probably my favourite way to de-stress, and it's especially effective when I start singing along to the songs too! I've been somewhat preforming a little concert for myself in my bedroom all day, ha! I've listened to a mix of Christmas hits, loud rock music and songs from my favourite musicals! If you follow me over on snapchat, you'll also know that today I discovered that Spotify will still play on my laptop whilst I'm playing Sims! I was delighted when I found this out accidentally! I was trying to unmute the audio on my new laptop so that I could hear the theme songs on the game, and at the same time my Spotify app appeared. Woohoo!
ALL THE FOOD!
On Boxing Day at my house, we traditionally have a buffet using left over turkey for sandwiches, and then my mom makes so much more food and it's amazing! Being a fussy eater, I absolutely adore buffets because I can pick and choose what I want, and how much of it and where abouts on my plate I want everything to go (this helps with my OCD as well). I love little nibble foods, and I ate so much that I'm still full now! I say that, and yet I've been going back to get more food all day. As I type this up, I have a paper plate next to me with party rings and sausage rolls on it! Apparently, I can't stop :D *now has a mighty need to eat said party rings*. Let me know in the comments guys... what are your favourite foods to find on a buffet?
Treat myself to something in the Christmas sales, well sort of...
Every year I tell myself that I'm going to take advantage of the Boxing Day sales online. I see people sharing about what they are buying all day on social media & think what an amazing deal, and then I never get anything for myself! Next year, I need to save some money just for the sales. I did however find a Christmas discount code on one of my favourite websites for buying collectible figures, and thus ordered myself some of those! 15% off, yes please! Retail therapy always makes me happy :D
So, even though I feel like this post was just me rambling on about my day, I hope that it was a nice read nonetheless, a little snippet into how I've spent my Boxing Day! Don't forget to let me know in the comments what you did today :) I'm going to be blogging about what I got for Christmas for tomorrow's blogmas post, so check back for that if you're interested!
Thankyou for reading!
♥
Have any of you made plans for celebrating New Years yet?
I'd love to hear all about what you're all getting up to :)
