D.I.Y. Christmas

This Christmas marks a landmark in our family. My daughter has moved out into her own apartment and for the first time in 21 years we got the decorations box out of storage and had to divide up the goodies.  She thought I should keep the angels, as I started collecting them long before she was born and I thought she should have all the red tinsel and baubles as she is brighter and more outgoing than me and red suits her.  We don't have Christmas trees but have made do, as we always do in Turkey, with a twiggy branch sprayed white.  This year we sprayed two.
This divvying up of Christmas paraphernalia has given cause for reflection and as someone who has spent roughly half my adult Christmas celebrations in the UK and half in Turkey I feel it's time for some comparisons.  One obvious omission  here is the lack of Advent. We don't light a candle on the first Sunday in December and the weather is usually too sunny to even think of winter but having visited the UK at the end of October and walked around a garden centre where Santa and his grotto were already set up, this is a good thing.  I can measure the number of times I hear Noddy Holder belting out his Christmas money spinner on the fingers of two hands here, whereas I would probably need the fingers and toes of a whole primary school in England.  I can comfortably start contemplating seasonal food preparation in the third week of December in Turkey and I won't have to have sat through the mandatory work Xmas lunch in the first week of December. (Is there anything worse than the false jollity of wearing a paper cracker-hat in the company of your work colleagues, eating dry roast turkey, at least 3 weeks before the 25th?)

Felt Christmas trees - What better way to decorate the tree.

The best thing about Christmas in a country that doesn't celebrate the Nativity is that we do it ourselves. When I first came to Bodrum, there were no decorations available, but plenty of pine cones, white spray-paint and sequins. Add red ribbons, hand-cut wooden snowflakes and bells and we didn't miss our fairy lights and baubles.  With the eruption of New Year celebrations in Turkey recently, all manner of flickering lights, trinkets and gaudy sparkles are now available in the shops but it's still more fun to make your own.  My daughter and I had a "craft bag" that was much mocked by my friends, but gave us great pleasure as we made Christmas pom-poms, chains, cards and crackers that you had to shout "bang" when you pulled.  So I was really pleased to wander around the Xmas market in Bodrum last week and see that the next generation of ex-pat mums has gone one better than us and is making cakes, mince pies, decorations and crackers that actually bang  to sell to each other.  This has to be better than  mega-supermarkets and chain stores goading us to spend more and more to add to their already obscene profits.

Ekim-Turquoise Secrets' beautiful Christmas cakes and biscuits

Angie's mince pies

The bi fit girls' Christmas floor show

If you haven't got a fir tree, decorate the next best thing.