Why did I buy two advent calendars?!

After a mad Lidl shop of spending around half an hour just in front of the Lebkuchen display, we ended up with this...

Exactly how early is too early for Christmas shopping? I guess being abroad I should be thinking about sending presents back home, but it still felt a bit wrong buying Christmas things in October. Looking back to previous years, my family has always resisted the ridiculously early Christmas spirit thing so that we had something to look forward to in December but that always meant that the advent calendars were always sold out by the time we started looking for them! This is my favourite Christmas buy yet:

I couldn't resist. It's so cute and I can keep it in my wardrobe waiting for next year. An investment for my Christmas future. *Ahem* Anyway, this morning I even found myself giving in  to my mum's demands and finally started drawing up a Christmas list so my family doesn't freak out when choosing presents for me. When doing this, I realized that I might actually be growing up...gone are the days when I would put the mp3 player all my friends had, the digital camera or even the dreaded furby *shudder*. I found myself putting "socks." That's it, I've crossed the boundary for asking things that I want, to doing the grown up thing of asking for realistic things that I need too. It made me think about what Christmas means to me. It isn't really the actual day that matters, but the excitement of counting down each day- which of course justified me buying two calendars... doesn't it? Last Christmas Eve was a bit of a shock for me when instead of staying awake from the excitement of Santa coming with all the presents, all I could think about was Christmas dinner and mince pies. Ok, forget about the whole "I'm growing up and asking for useful things" rubbish. I've made amendments to the list:

• Almond butter, peanut butter...just butter really
• gingerbread
• Marmite (OF COURSE)
• Good strong English tea
• Biscuits that actually dunk in said tea- hobnobs all the way.
• Mince pies
• Crumpets/toasted teacakes
• Soreen

Socks can wait.