The Gratitude List: Week ending 08 Dec

PHEW! What a week. So many things, so many events. You can really feel the craziness of Christmas taking hold. I have lots of fun things happening in December so it's nice to reflect on the things that made me smile through the week. So, what were those things this week?



1. MUSE - On Friday night I ventured into Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne to see Muse. I've seen them a couple of times before and was a little hesitant on buying tickets this time. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE them and I LOVE watching them live. I haven't really listened to their new stuff or listened to their music at all lately. I needn't have worried or hesitated about buying tickets - THEY WERE AMAZING. They have one of the best live shows I've seen and one of the best stage set ups around. They played a really great mix of old and new stuff and when the opening riffs started for "Plug In Baby" I lost my s**t just a little.

2. Alicia Keys - On Sunday night I went back to Rod Laver Arena for a different type of concert. Alicia Keys was all kinds of brilliant in a totally different way. She is powerful, talented, beautiful, inspiring and did I mention talented?!?! She totally blew me away - I may have almost cried when she started to play "Diary" and couldn't sit in my seat while she played "No One". She finished with Jay Z on a screen (always nice to see his face) and her album version of "Empire State of Mind, Pt 2".



3. We decorated out Christmas tree - I've mentioned before that we have a family tradition of not getting our Christmas tree until after my Dad's birthday. This year we broke that tradition. We had the nieces and nephews over on the weekend and Dad got the tree especially so that they could help us decorate it. IT WAS THE BEST FUN!! We put on Christmas Carols and they spent the whole time getting excited about every decoration we removed from the boxes.

If you are ever feeling "Grinchy" about Christmas just talk to a kid about it. Their enthusiasm, energy and excitement is infectious (just make sure you know the kid - it might be weird if you just walk up to a child in the supermarket and started talking to them about Christmas)

I also visited my Grandma and put up her Christmas Tree for her and helped her organise her Christmas presents. It was so nice to visit her and spend some time decorating and making her house fill up with green and red.



4. Creating decorations - I've posted already about the mini Christmas Trees I made with popsicle sticks. When the kids were around I had them decorate some of the extra trees that I made up for them. They had a blast decorating them. They used textas (markers) and glitter glue to decorate their trees. They are now hanging proudly on our big Christmas tree.

5. Getting a start on my Christmas movies - So far I have watched 4 movies from my list. I've not done as well as I was hoping but I've been enjoying re-watching these movies. I did get distracted by a last minute Lord of the Rings marathon (I decided I wanted to watch them all before seeing the new Hobbit movie on the 26th of December). I can't wait to sit down and watch more Christmas movies.

How are you getting into the Christmas Spirit this week?

I am going Christmas shopping this weekend (brave I know, but I have some tips that I'll share on how to survive the big stores at Christmas) and have lots of Christmas movies to watch. I'm also listening to Christmas songs to/from work and at work.

Have a fabulous week
 - Brooke