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Yvie Burnett: Sorry but I’m starting early with Christmas

When it's your turn to host Christmas dinner, it's a good idea to start planning well in advance.
When it's your turn to host Christmas dinner, it's a good idea to start planning well in advance.

Well as you all know, I’m very proud of my north-east roots and of the little village of Methlick I grew up in.

So of course any stories about that part of the world are very interesting to me.

Thank you to Tom Leslie who sent me a tweet sending me this little poem, known as The Methlick Grace. Did any of you know this?

O Lord, we sikk a blissin noo,

On ashets fairly stappit foo,

Ham fae the grumphie, beef fae the coo,

An troots fae out the Ythan

An eence we’re hame-wards bound the nicht,

Tae Fyvie, Ellon, Maud or Gight,

Keeps airtit true an roadit richt,

As the meen shines on the Ythan

Robbie Shepherd, pictured here with a guide dog also called Robbie Shepherd, has done so much for Doric.

Methlick

If you haven’t visited Methlick, it is nestled on the banks of the Ythan with roads leading to Ellon, Tarves , New Deer, and Fyvie via Gight where my family are from.

So this poem sums it up perfectly.

I haven’t turned into Robbie Shepherd and won’t be writing a Doric column anytime soon, you will be pleased to hear.

I had to concentrate very hard while typing these Doric words and I hope it’s correct Robbie.

When I get sentimental about my upbringing, it’s the Doric phrases that often bring tears to my eyes.

We are so lucky that we have such a unique dialect in this part of the world and our wonderful Robbie Shepherd who keeps it alive for us in his column.

It’ll be here before you know it but Yvie’s planning to slim down on presents this year.

Christmas planning

So I know it’s only October but in our family the planning for Christmas has already started.

I do apologise for mentioning Christmas so soon but due to a busy few weeks coming up I decided to get organised.

It’s our turn to host so it looks like it’s going to be hectic in our house on the 25th of December.

We’ll soon be out and about Christmas shopping.

Gordon and I are both only children so we have always loved the idea of huge family get-togethers.

I can’t slim down on the food shop with all these guests coming but I’m definitely intending to drastically slim down the present giving this year.

Santa still comes to our house with large stockings full of bits and pieces even though Emily is 28 and Ollie 25 but this year I have decided on a new plan.

Beauty advent calendars

I’ve been seeing some wonderful beauty advent calendars on sale. They have been popular for a few years but this year they seem to have taken off big time.

Now these calendars are by no means cheap but the products in them would be much more expensive to buy individually.

Indeed, the calendars can be hundreds of pounds but the manufactures state that the goods inside those ones are worth up to £1,000.

The John Lewis beauty advent calendar is packed with goodies.

So for example, John Lewis has one. It costs a whopping £179 pounds but lists extremely expensive beauty products as being inside.

My view is that if you have 25 little gifts which apparently include things like Charlotte Tilbury in there, it must be a cheaper way to buy them and they are all surprises.

They state that the cost of the products if you bought them individually is £771.

Cult Beauty are an online beauty retailer. Their beauty advent calendar is one off the most popular with huge savings on the products inside.

The beauty advent calendar from prettylittlething.

Then of course the Crème de la Crème is from Liberty London which just exudes glamour and you can use the beautiful Liberty boxes to store things in afterwards.

These are all available online as are many more if you do your research.

I’m sure Santa has probably been spending £200 at least on filling up our stockings every year so if you are like me and want him not to have to search for lots of things this year, why not ask him for a beauty calendar?

Better be quick though because they sell out pretty quickly.

Santa will have strict instructions this year.

My plan for this year is to ask Santa to buy a posh one of those and we can pick numbers out of a hat and share the 25 gifts between us when we wake up instead of stockings.

Of course, if you have children, I can’t help either you or Santa. You will still be scrambling around searching for specific toys on the last week of December.

But it’s all worth it to see their faces on Christmas morning.

By the way, Matt Goss was better on Strictly on Saturday but when he got through and Fleur had to dance again, I may or may not have let out a rude word or two!

Have a good week,

Yvie x

The contestants for this year’s Strictly Come Dancing on BBC1. Picture: Ray Burmiston/PA Wire.

 

 

 

 

 

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