And just like that, Christmas is here! Our tree is And just like that, Christmas is here! Our tree is up, the Santa hats are out and the first doors on our advent calendars are open.

I love this time of year. It is my favourite. And it’s one of the few times still full of magic even as an adult. I’m going to be soaking up every minute of joy the next few weeks bring and I hope December is full of moments of joy for you too.

Happy December! 🎄
AD | Christmas has arrived at @thelexiconbracknell AD | Christmas has arrived at @thelexiconbracknell and there’s so much to entertain the whole family whilst you do your Christmas shopping! 

Visit The Lexicon Glow Room for a magical light experience that will dazzle you with 20,000 LEDs. It feels like the room goes on forever! Then, take a dip in the Light Pool, a magical ball pool with golden balls to be found and prizes to be won!

If that wasn’t all, have a photo in the giant Christmas bauble ‘sparkling selfie station’ and follow the Twinkle Trail, spotting baubles in shop windows to collect the clues and enter to win fabulous prizes this Christmas. Plus, share your sparkling selfie station pictures, tagging #thelexiconbracknell or email them to marketing@thelexiconbracknell.com and you will automatically be entered in a competition for the chance to win a restaurant gift card too. 

There are also special performances from local choirs, bands and singers and even the chance to meet Bluey, Hey Duggee and Chase from Paw Patrol! You can be sure that a trip to The Lexicon will have something for everyone over the festive season this year. We loved our visit to The Lexicon last weekend and know we’ll be back again before Christmas!

Find out more on @thelexiconbracknell website.

#TheLexiconBracknell #Merry&Bright
AD - Press Trip | What a lovely evening that was! AD - Press Trip | What a lovely evening that was! We had our first Glow Marwell experience tonight - and we loved it. It may even be the best light trail we have been to.

We spent well over two hours at @marwellzoo, enjoying the light installations, indulging in the food stalls and cafe, toasting marshmallows and even meeting Father Christmas! 

Glow Marwell was such a nice way to kick off the festive season - and it’s on all the way through December! If you’re looking for a really nice festive activity the whole family can enjoy, this could definitely be it!
AD | Are you looking for gifts for the grandparent AD | Are you looking for gifts for the grandparents this year? @famileo_uk is a wonderful gift, giving the recipient a personalised gazette of family news regularly throughout the year - and it costs from just £5.99 a month. 

Multiple family members can use the same subscription, all posting messages to be added to one gazette - and sharing the cost of the subscription too! It’s great for parents, siblings and children to all share their news with grandparents each week, fortnight or month. 

We’ve been sending my dad Family gazettes for a while now and he absolutely loves them. It means we tell him all the little things that are happening and not just the big news you remember to mention in phone calls. The children get to upload their own messages to their grandad and it’s definitely made them feel closer, building a stronger relationship despite living far apart.

Find out more about Family over on the blog - link in bio - and buy a subscription for your nearest and dearest this Christmas. It’s a gift they will definitely love to receive.
Two weeks of Fred & George! I won’t be doing the Two weeks of Fred & George! I won’t be doing these updates every week but I like having somewhere to put all these photos!

They’re now three months old, super loving and happy, making biscuits and purring constantly.

They stay in ‘their’ room overnight but explore the house during the day, getting more confident as time passes. They even got to the point of relaxing on the sofa with us last night.

Fred & George are now very much part of our family and I can’t imagine them not being there now - even at 7am when they’re miaowing at the door for breakfast!
AD | Stuck for screen-free entertainment that your AD | Stuck for screen-free entertainment that your kids will love? Claim your FREE Banjo Robinson activity pack today!
 
Reading for pleasure is a key indicator of a child’s future success, but if your child doesn’t love to read, what can you do? We know it’s not always easy keeping kids entertained and away from screens, so we’ve partnered with the award-winning @banjorobinson to gift you a FREE activity pack, worth £9.99.

Here’s a little look at the Banjo Robinson subscription - Troy loves it! Travelling to world with Banjo is so much fun! You can read our full review over on the blog and claim your free activity pack too - link in profile.
A whole week of Fred & George. We weren’t meant A whole week of Fred & George.

We weren’t meant to get more cats just yet but sometimes the universe sends you things when you don’t expect them.

These little guys needed a home and a family to love them. And we had a home and a lot of love to give. We still miss Leia but this pair are definitely helping make me feel whole again.

They are both used to us now, and love us. They’re less nervous, give us cuddles and let us pick them up. They’re still living in our spare room but starting to explore the rest of the house under supervision. 

They play fight constant. Love toys, especially a crinkly feather thing on a string attached to a stick, and love being up high. They are an awesome pair and we are so glad to have them.

Thank you @millbrook_rspca @rspca_official for trusting us with ‘Lonestar and Starfish’. We could not love them more. 

#catsofinstagram #catstagram #catsofig #catsofinsta #catlovers #adoptdontshop #rspcarescuecat #kittensofinstagram #kittens_of_instagram
[AD - Press Trip] I’ve just finished writing abo [AD - Press Trip] I’ve just finished writing about our half term break at @pottersresort and it’s over on the blog if you want to go have a read.

I wanted to put some of my favourite photos on the grid too as the kids did so many fun activities - they had THE best time. 

Giant swing, segways, climbing, archery, laser clays… there was so much to do that we couldn’t fit it all in - we need another trip!
And there ends our October half term - well, apart And there ends our October half term - well, apart from Troy who has a bonus week off!

This half term has been pretty lovely. Troy had his school residential the first weekend and then we had a really lovely few days in Norfolk before heading home and picking up two new members of our family - Fred and George. 11 week old rescue kittens who have pretty much stolen our hearts.

It’s been so nice to have a chunk of quality time with this pair and now I’m looking forward to the Christmas holidays. These two are the best company and I really do live for the school holidays. 

How has your half term been?
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Childhood · July 10, 2017

How Life, and Childhood, have changed in 25 Years

I’ve been thinking a lot about how LP and Little Man’s childhood is different from my own, how it was simpler 25 years ago, things were less material and how I loved more basic things like playing outside, reading and making tents in the garden with sheets. It’s not that the children don’t love those things now, just that life is busier, has more distractions and there are just more options when it comes to entertainment than there were when I was LP’s age.

How Life, and Childhood, have changed in 25 Years

I take the children to soft play all the time. We go at least a couple of times a month and it’s their favourite way to pass a rainy morning. But, when I was little soft play didn’t exist. Instead, if it was raining, we would take all the cushions off the sofa and use them to make our own indoor fun or we’d put our wellies on and go and jump in puddles.

I remember getting in from school and turning the TV on, having four whole channels to choose from – with only two showing children’s TV shows. It was the same on a weekend morning, dragging myself downstairs in my pyjamas and turning on Live and Kicking or Going Live. Our TV choices were limited but we would watch them or we would do something else. It was that simple.

Nowadays, children spend more time choosing what to watch than actually watching it. Terrestrial TV no longer exists and so if you have access to TV shows then you have hundreds if not thousands of options at the click of a button. I can count my favourite shows from childhood across the fingers on both hands whereas LP and Little Man have so many favourite shows, with more being added as each week goes by.

They also have reality TV as part of the life they are growing into. So many shows follow real people around, not actors just real people doing real things. I remember the first series of Big Brother, how it was so new, so different and so compelling to watch. From there we have seen so many singing contests, talent contests and people sharing their whole life on screen. The Only Way is Essex, Made in Chelsea and Gogglebox are all pretty normal TV now and as popular as a proper series or soap. I wonder what LP and Little Man will make of these type of shows that will end up being so normal for them and such a typical part of their TV viewing when they’re older.

I remember having a few VHS tapes that I would record on, over and over again. Taping movies or an episode of Byker Grove to watch later. I had a few Disney movies on VHS too and DVDs didn’t get launched until my late teens. To have the amount of movies, right there on DVD, that LP and Little Man have would have been a thing of dreams when I was a child – we didn’t even have the space for that many movies on VHS – let alone the money.

We didn’t have the internet at home until my late teens either when our first dial-up connection was installed. The idea of having a computer that we could walk around with, a tablet that we could take everywhere with us and have access to a whole world of information and activities at the touch of a button would have been so futuristic, something we could only dream of.

How Life, and Childhood, have changed in 25 Years

But now, the internet is everywhere. It’s hard to find somewhere now where there isn’t wifi although you occasionally have to pay extra for it. Children are growing up with apps to do pretty much anything, social media ready to join when they get older enough and YouTube to while away the time when they have nothing better to do – watching anything from music videos to toys being unboxed. The most I had as a child was MTV at friends’ houses – we didn’t have cable or Sky at home so even music videos weren’t easy to access back then and instead I listened to the chart on the radio on a Sunday evening, my Mum doing the ironing and me doing the last of my homework. We didn’t even have MP3s back then – no iPods and just my trusty old Sony Discman, before that a cassette Walkman. Now, having my whole music collection with me wherever I go is still something I find amazing. But, back then, I loved listening to an album over and over until I bothered to change the cassette or CD. The first album you bought was always something special, a right of passage. Now, without that tangible case and disc in their hands I doubt it would be as memorable an experience for LP and Little Man.

The children love to watch TV shows or play games on my phone. They know how to take photos using the camera on it and they love talking to Daddy on loudspeaker when he’s at work. Children use FaceTime and Skype and they can’t imagine not having access to people, family and friends, at the touch of a button but when I was small mobile phone weren’t commonplace – they were clunky and huge, reserved mainly for the armed forces. But by my teens mobile phones were smaller, they could fit in your pocket and I remember getting my first one – after collecting ring pulls on Coke cans.

The same goes for GPS – it just wasn’t around when I was little. We had to read maps, with one person driving and one directing with so many arguments all starting over map reading. The children now are growing up knowing when we have reached our destination – as a little voice tells them so. They’ll never hear Dave and I arguing over whether it was the first or second left and they will always know where they are going.

Through my childhood our dinners were simple and snacks were fruit, crisps or toast. Actual snacks aimed at children weren’t really a thing although I do remember there being a lot of drinks especially for children – those plastic bottles with the top you would twist or chew off. There was also so much confectionary – sweets everywhere and always at supermarket checkouts, something you don’t often see today. But, snacks were simple and we had three meals a day, mostly homemade. There weren’t many of the kitchen gadgets you see today – our trusty Tefal Actifry would have been seen as a complete waste of money back then, taking up precious space in the cupboard. There were no recipe boxes delivered to your door and there wasn’t the health conscious marketing that there is today – no traffic lights on food packaging and pretty much one option of each thing when you went shopping with a basic, supermarket own version gradually brought in.

We also had to do our food shopping in the supermarket and it was a regular Monday excursion for us when I finished school. Supermarkets were so busy and it seemed to take all afternoon – it was amazing when internet grocery shopping took off and something I am so thankful for although I know my parents would see it as the ultimate luxury and not something they would have been able to afford themselves. Our children now have the best of both worlds, coming to the supermarket with us sometimes but seeing our weekly shop delivered, with food literally just appearing at the door when the fridge is nearly empty.

I loved school and watching LP and Little Man go to school and nursery each day I realise how similar it is to when I was their age. We all learn things the same way although they didn’t call it Phonics back then. There were also no SATs tests, which were introduced in my teens. It seemed more relaxed when I was a child yet I loved school as much as LP does and learnt just as much too.

I walked to school every day, holding my Mum’s hand and skipping along. LP and Little Man scoot to school and they asked if I had a scooter when I was a child but no, they didn’t exist either. I had roller skates and then inline skates and I had a bike – a pink one with stabilisers and a basket on the front. But, I didn’t have a scooter – I can only imagine how much fun it is to be a child now and scoot to school.

How Life, and Childhood, have changed in 25 Years

Life now is amazing. It truly is. I grew up through the years where the future was made. Technology progressed so quickly and we had so many new material things in such a short space of time. It was a consumer’s dream. Now, the children are growing up in an age where everything is right there – they have Google, Wikipedia and the whole of the internet to explore. They don’t need to go and research things in the library, look at the weekly paper for cinema listings or go and look at the sign on the bus stop to know what time the next one will come.

The children are so lucky to be born into such an era, to have so much. But, I look back at my own childhood, a childhood where we didn’t have so much, where everything was that much harder and where we had to work to get even the smallest piece of information. It was a time when we made our own fun, where we spent most of our time outside and where it didn’t matter if you had the latest gadgets – those things didn’t exist to even care about.

So I wonder what is better? I knew no different as a child and LP and Little Man know no different now. I feel quite nostalgic for the childhood I had and I know that if LP and Little Man were to live that same childhood then they would love it just as much as I did.

Things were definitely simpler twenty five years ago and things are definitely a lot different for children growing up today. I don’t think either generation is better than the other – they are just very, very different.

How Life, and Childhood, have changed in 25 Years

In: Childhood

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Comments

  1. Claire Bayliss says

    July 10, 2017 at 12:28 pm

    It’s funny, we were just talking about this yesterday, while programming the sat nav ready for our holiday, and wondering what on Earth we would’ve done in the days before sat navs as neither of us can read a map to save our lives, lol. I often say I wish the kids could’ve grown up in our childhood, I think they would appreciate things more but I certainly love quite a few modern advances too, not just sat navs but online shopping especially is a god-send to us, no-one wants to take 5 kids shopping! x

    Reply
  2. Karen, the next best thing to mummy says

    July 10, 2017 at 6:06 pm

    My childhood was completely different from that of my children, I would play outside all day, where as my boys loved to spend as much time as possible in front of a screen playing video games

    Reply
  3. Laura - Dear Bear and Beany says

    July 11, 2017 at 7:01 am

    My mum always says to me how much busier life is to when she was a young mum raising us. There is so many things that our children will never get to experience. Having to phone your friend or boyfriend from the hallway whispering so no one would hear you!!!!! X

    Reply
  4. Laura's Lovely Blog says

    July 11, 2017 at 6:55 pm

    Oh I remember so many of these things – arguing over the TV as there was only one. Recording things over and over and getting upset if someone recorded over your show. Trying to have a private conversation in the hallway! When I used to have a pager as mobile phones were too expensive at the time. It’s such a different time that we live in and I think it’s both wonderful and will bring with it new challenges. Great post Donna x

    Reply
  5. Tanita says

    July 11, 2017 at 7:11 pm

    I totally agree Donna. If anything I think the generation now are so lucky (if you look at it in a positive way) to have the internet and to be able to connect with people all over the world they wouldn’t have necessarily being able to of course as adults. I also think it opens amazing job opportunities for people. I just love what the internet has given us. As long as of course we use it for good. xx

    Reply

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Hi everyone! I'm Donna. Mummy. Blogger. Social Media Manager. Traveller. Lover of stars, rainbows and gin. Firm believer that tea and cake can fix most things.

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