Finally, Christmas is close enough to start getting excited about! I’m not a Christmas loon but I do enjoy a little bit of festivity once December rolls around and it’s getting harder to tell when an innocent comment about the impending holiday will elicit groans rather than cheer from anyone in the vicinity. Assuming the very thought of Christmas doesn’t offend you, please carry on…
I have a real tree again this year and, for once, it isn’t the last sad, tired looking one from B&Q I usually end up with. A bit of forward planning and one excellent supplier recommendation later and I have a very pretty little (well, nearly 6 foot) Nordman Fir. I managed to get this one for a bargain price of £25 but I think I may have been very lucky with a sympathetic and very helpful tree salesman — after breaking my washing machine yesterday morning the saving was very welcome. If you’re in Glasgow and looking for a tree I’d definitely recommend them — they’re on Algie Street, just across from the Church on the Hill. I don’t know them, their trees are just some of the nicest I’ve seen in Glasgow — if I had a bigger house and a bigger budget I’d have gotten one of the beautiful spruces with a log base.
The downside to my lovely tree is the bare base reminding me I have no presents to put under it. Every year I spend hours poring over websites weeks in advance, planning everyone’s presents in meticulous detail before panicking about whether I’ll be able to get the packages and deciding against online shopping at the last moment. How DO people who work full time get packages? My local Royal Mail collection centre serves a huge area of Glasgow that comprises mainly of flats (so most people struggle to get packages delivered) and yet only opens business hours during the week and on Saturday mornings. I once waited three and a half hours there on a Saturday morning only to be told they had to close and I should come back on Monday — not a particularly workable service. So, I expect I’ll be spending the two days before Christmas in the city centre, fighting my way through the least festive bunch of people around — the late Christmas shoppers. I suspect a few Festival beers from the German Christmas market will be required to get through the torture.
I’ve made a couple of Spotify Christmas playlists which should come in handy to drown out the screeching/wailing/shouting/swearing of my fellow shoppers. I’ve separated the tunes into two lists — Christmas (songs that your Mum would like) and Alternative Christmas (songs your Mum probably wouldn’t like). Track-listings after the jump if you’re interested.
Image via Design Crush
Staying creative is a tricky beast — with so much information being thrown at us from all directions, it can be hard to release your mind from the distractions and really focus on creating something new.
I’m working on a personal project to get my creative synapses properly firing, but I’m finding it hard to really get it off the ground. By the time I get home from work my ability to think creatively has been used up for another day and the minutae of running a household takes over. How does one find the time to think and work creatively while there are towels to be washed, pots of pasta to stir, cat litter trays to empty and gym memberships to ignore?
Number 2 on this list is finally working its way into my daily life: for all the years I have loved Moleskine notebooks, I’ve always been terrible at actually using them. I’ve collected all the part-used notebooks and put them in a pile by my front door to remind me to take them with me when I leave the house, so now all I just come up with something to go in them.
Number 11 has also been taken on with some gusto lately, but is faltering as I inevitably find myself listening to my three ‘new’ bands (at the moment Frightened Rabbit, The National, and Bön Iver) on repeat and forget to look for anything else. A Spotify subscription should hopefully resolve this. Are you listening Santa?
Next, I’m going to take on number 31 — my workspace is currently wherever I end up with my laptop, usually on the sofa in front of the TV… not the most inspiring. I’ve decided there shall be two spaces for work in my flat: my dining table for hanging on to the kitchen winter warmth and the study for the serious ‘get your head down’ stuff. Now where do I find the motivation to tidy up my workspace so I can have the motivation to work?
Coincidentally, I picked up the first issue of Innovator Scotland at lunchtime which has an interesting piece on creativity. Read it — and the whole magazine — here (page 22).
This is mainly for my own use but as others seem to be finding it useful I’ll publish it here. (Full spreadsheet can be found at Google Docs)
by Jonathan Mak
