I love advent. I love the anticipation and the preparation and I’m not even gonna pretend that I’ve not peaked too soon this year? Anyone with me?

Before I had my own kids I was a live-in nanny and I remember each year their mum would put slips of paper into each pocket of their calendar and they would run down the stairs each morning with squeals of delight, fending each other off to be the first to see what the activity for the day was and I remember my own delight as a kid as my mum handed me the dairy milk calendar. I’d always dreamed of the rituals and traditions I could bring into our home when we had children and have loved hearing of others, especially traditions from different cultures like Parols, bright and colourful lanterns placed inside the home in the Philippines, and those in Poland cleaning their homes from top to bottom to make it perfect for the arrival of Jesus.

I LOVE giving gifts, anyone with me? 15 years ago you could find me in a queue at Woolies or WH Smith excitedly buying my mum something with the ten pounds i’d saved up from my weekend job- probably something plastic and probably something completely unnecessary- and six years ago I would have had no problem ordering all my gifts from Amazon with no idea how or where they were made or what harm I could be causing in the places I chose to invest my money. A few years later and with the exposure to some hardcore facts and realities, and mainly with a strong conviction to know those making my products were paid fairly, I chose to start shopping differently even though I didn't really have a clue where to go or where to start.