What I got for Christmas 2014

Hi lovelies,

I hope you had a wonderful festive period. I hope you had a great time and if that's not the case I hope you at least got the presents you wished for to make up for it. I personally had a great time. Okay there are the moment I felt like I was going to kill my family. My family seems to get more stressed than excited for family parties. That's why I totally get it if you don't enjoy this time of year. That being said I do feel like I've grown up a lot in the past year considering Christmas (only Christmas - I'm a Disneylovingchild forever). This is the first year in my life I cared less about the presents. Usually I'm quite greedy and have my list of things I want ready. This year was different and that has translated in my presents. I don't have a lot to show you because my presents were more sentimental and activitybased than materialistic. I'll talk about them below but first this.

I also felt a shift in wanting to receive gifts to wanting to buy and think about what I would give to others. I never bought presents for my family. My aunties usually buy things and say 'well, I got you this, you can give that to your parents and this to your grandparents,..' I realise now that how lazy that was, It's okay when your a child but it shouldn't have happened this way until I was 20 years old. This year I decided to buy my own presents and it feels so much better. My spoiled my girlfriend and bought her so many tiny gifts and she loved it so I loved it. For my father I bought a tie and I feel proud when he wears it because I chose it. I'm really happy I've made this change and have finally grown up. 

Last but not least we introduced a new thing in our family. My aunties thought it would be funny to set a budget of 5 euros per person and buy food and then do something fun with it. You know as a silly little thing. Sceptical as I always am, I didn't agree at all. I found it a stupid idea unless you would give the food we purchased to a charity. So that's what we did. We shopped and between Christmas and new years we brought the food to our local Poverello. Which is an organisation that helps the poor people in our city. They can go there for cheap clothes and a warm meal and/or coffeebreak. I felt so appreciated by doing that that it will definitely become a new tradition. It's only a small thing to do but all little things count.

Now back to what I got for Christmas

- Bongo gift certificate for a wellness weekend - Girlfriend

- Lush bathbombs : father Christmas, blueberry, wizard - Girlfriend

- Vivabox cinema and a bongo gift certificate for a dinner for 2 which was for Anais but I'll be joining her so it may count as a present for me - Girlfriends grandparents

- 3 entrancetickets for a wellness centre near us - Parents-in-law

- Gift certificate for a restaurant I like - Auntie

- A handmade cookbook with all my beloved family recipies which I will treasure for ever - Auntie 

- Money so I can't buy whatever I want - my parents

All by all my year ended well. I'll also do a get ready with me- christmas edition as well as a new years edition and I also see a 2014 favorites in the near future. 

Goodbyeeee

- Nikki

Christmas Prezzies 2013

Hi lovelies,

This post is a bit overdue but with New Years sneakin' up on us so fast I postponed it. I wanted to remember what I got for Christmas this year and what better way to make a blogpost. I kinda chose every present myself this year... I now that takes the surprise away and part of the Christmas spirit but I liked it because I knew I would like every present. 

Some of the presents under the family tree 

Presents from the girlfriend

 Presents!!

 This took blood, sweat and tears to track this bag down. It's a Zara bag and I noticed it on Gh0stparties blog. She photographed it beautifully in this post and I new right away I needed to have it in my life. The bag finally made it's way back to the Zara website and I ordered it immediately. You can zip the zips on the side all the way up for a compact bag like I did here or can be undone like in Gh0stparties blogpost. It's gorgeous either way. I received this from my Auntie because she didn't brought me back anything from her trip to New Zealand and as the real Christmas gift she paid for my Dour Festival ticket for 2014. 

A Christmas ornament with my name on it

I got this present from my parents to have a little something under the tree because their main present was an envelop with money so I can use it for whatever I please. You won't hear me complaining about that. I love this fragrance from Dove and was dying to try the body cream because you can't find it separately in the stores and it turned out to be absolutely lovely. 

From my other Auntie I received this hairstyling set. It has everything you will ever need in it basically. I was using my mothers curling iron for awhile. It's older than I am, the curls didn't stay longer than an hour and it probably burned my hair, as technology wasn't as advanced as it is now, so a replacement was due. I tried the flat curling iron and I absolutely loved it. It kept the curls in my hair for 3 days. I definitely recommend this, even if all the other irons suck I would still buy it for the flat one. I never saw a flat iron in Belgium before and the set isn't that expensive either. 

From my family as a cute little extra gift they gave me a bag filled with samples and I loved that. 

 Cards filled with money, what's not to love? I received a card from my grandparents, parents, auntie, parents-in-law and grand-parents-in-law. Lucky me. The only thing about it is that... They really should learn how to write my name.

Last but not least are the presents I received from my lovely girlfriend. She took my on a shopping trip and let me chose the presents right there and I was sooooo excited. I chose the volume mascara from Hema in the golden packaging from the Christmas collection. From the bodyshop I chose a trial packed from the seaweed collection complete with the face wash, toner, daycream and night treathment. I also got the vitamin E eyecream, which kinda disappointed me. I have very dry skin under my eyes, it looks like eczema but I'm not sure if that's what it is and because this is targeted at sensitive skin I thought it would be perfect but it stung like crazy. I'll try it again on a better day but for now it didn't meet my expectations. Nothing she could do about of course it's still a lovely present. I also got a make-up mirror that I didn't photograph because I left it at her place, where I will be needing it.

What did you get? I loved my presents and hope you liked yours. 

Goodbyeeee

- Nikki