Blogmas, Day 7 (2016) | How To Make The Most Of Christmas Whilst Working

I surely can't be the only one that's been finding juggling life and Christmas celebrations quite the difficult task. And as some of you may know, I've recently left education which means I'm now working. Although I'm only part time, I've still been finding organizing life in general quite the challenge. So I've come up with a few tips and if you're finding yourself in a similar situation I hope this post is useful.

My tips for making the most of Christmas whilst working are:

1. Start Preparation Early- Get those Christmas present lists sorted asap. Write down everyone you're planning on getting presents for and write down what you think they might like. Then, when the sales creep up, you'll know exactly what you need to get. Also, if you're hosting a Christmas party/meal I definitley recommend planning early too. That will give you time to ask/work out what you're guests will be needing, and of course give you plenty of time to put those plans into action.

2. Sort Out Your Budget- This is quite possibly the most important step, as you want to know how much money you're able to spend. I think we all can relate to how expensive this time of year is, so it's good to know what you're working with. What I've been doing is working out how much I'll get paid this month, taking away the money I'll need for everyday things (train tickets, food etc) and then taking away anything that I might want to put in my savings. I'm starting to have a clear idea of what my budget for Christmas presents is, and it's good to work with a clear amount in mind.

3. Write A To-do List- I literally live by my to-do lists and I'd be so lost without it. But something I've been doing throughout December is writing deadlines of when everything needs to be done. I know exactly when I'm going to buy which presents, and I know what other life things need to be done by the end of December too. This has really truly helped reduce stress.

4. Learn To Switch Off- Ok, I'll admit it... this is something I'm absolutely rubbish at. I like to keep working until everything on my to-do list is complete. But reducing stress as much as possible during this time of year is so incredibly important. Let's face it, we'd all rather be like Buddy the Elf instead of the Grinch, but sometimes the holiday stress can make us feel more like the latter. But you need to give yourself credit for a hard day's work, and accept the fact you're allowed to put your feet up and relax.

5. Plan In Nice Things To Do- Don't get me wrong, working hard is important, but so is playing hard. Doing fun things like hanging out with friends is a great way to switch off from "work mode". And let's face it, spending time with family and friends is what this time of year is all about. 

6. Enjoy The Festive Spirit- I know a lot of us will be doing overtime at work throughout the holidays, especially if you work in retail. But if you're doing something during the Christmas season, you may as well make the most of it, even if it's only work. You go and enjoy the Christmas tunes they might be playing in the background of your office, enjoy the street lights you can see from your window, smile and talk to people about Christmas in general. I mean who doesn't love a good ol' natter about the holidays and what you'll be getting up to?!

So there's my little post about how to be busy during the festive season, yet make the most of it. There's nothing worse than letting the best time of year pass you by without you realising, just because you were too busy. The song of the day is It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year by Andy Williams. Are you busy at this time of year? Let me know what you're up to in the comments,

Izzy K xxx

Blogmas, Day 6 (2016) | St Nicholas Day

Happy 6th of December, aka St Nicholas Day. I know that some of you may celebrate it, in which case I hope you had a great day. And for those of you that don't know what this day is, this post is the one for you!

St Nicholas is celebrated in a few countries around the world where Christianity is celebrated. One of these countries where it is strongly practiced is Germany, and as some of you may know I'm part German. 

It's traditional on the evening of the 5th of December to leave your boots out for St Nick. And then, much like Santa (would you believe it!) he decides on whether or not you've been naughty or nice all year. If you've been good he fills your boots with sweets and treats. And if not, I believe he's meant to leave a stick or coal as a punishment. That way, you find out in the morning if you've been good or not!

This is a tradition that my family that we've been practicing since me and my sister were children, and that my mum grew up knowing too. This year was no exception, and I'm very very thankful that "St Nicholas" stopped by for another year. "He" was kind enough to leave me some lovely chocolates, marzipan (my ultimate bae), a gingerbread house which is awesome, and the world's coolest Christmas jumper.

My new swag jumper!

I hope you all had a lovely December 6th, whether you celebrated or not :) The song of the day is Do They Know It's Christmas by Band Aid. Do you celebrate St Nicholas day, or do you have any of your own traditions at this time of year? Let me know in the comments,

Izzy K xxx

Blogmas, Day 5 (2016) | Christmas Playlist

That's right, it's time for an actual Christmas related blogmas post from me! And what better way to talk about Christmas, than to mention all the top festive tunes?

I don't know about you but I'm obsessed with making spotify playlists. I have a playlist for absolutely every mood and playlists of every genre. You name it, I've made a playlist for it! That's why, around October time, I started to put together my very own lists of songs that I need to listen to throughout the holidays.

So I've made a list of every song that's a top tune for this time of year. You're welcome fellow Christmas lovers ;)

• Santa Tell Me (Ariana Grande)
• All I Want For Christmas Is You (Mariah Carey)
• Last Christmas (Wham!)
• It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year (Andy Williams)
• Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! (Frank Sinatra)
• Merry Christmas Everyone (Shakin' Stevens)
• 8 Days Of Christmas (Destiny's Child)
• Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas (Christina Aguilera) 
• Shake Up Christmas (Train)
• Baby Please Come Home (Darlene Love)
• Fairytale of New York (The Pogues ft Kirsty Macoll)
• Driving Home For Christmas (Chris Rea)
• I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday (Wizzard)
• Lonley This Christmas (Mud)
• The Power Of Love (Gabrielle Aplin)
• Santa Baby (Kylie Minogue) 
• Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree (Brenda Lee)
• Santa Claus Is Coming To Town (Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons)
•  Do They Know It's Christmas (Band Aid)
• Mistletoe & Wine (Cliff Richard)
• Stop the Cavalry (Jona Lewie)
• Step Into Christmas (Elton John)
• Wonderful Christmas (Paul McCartney)
• Mistletoe (Justin Bieber)

So there we are, every song that I'll be playing non-stop throughout December. The song of the day will actually be everysong from this list, because how can I even pick one? Please let me know if you think I've missed an absolute classic from the list. Thanks for reading and what are your favourite Christmas songs? Let me know in the comments,

Izzy K xxx

Blogmas, Day 4 (2016) | Weekly Summary Post: 1st Week of December

Phewwww that was a long title!

Sorry today isn't really a Christmas themed post (again!) I do promise they're on their way shortly. But you guys know I like to update my blog with what I've been posting on my channel throughout the week. So here we go:

Izzynterview With: CHRISSY and TriTri

This will be my last Izzynterview for a little while, because I've come up with another sort of series which I think will work a bit better. But in case you didn't know, Izzynterviews are where I interview my youtube friends in a little collab. This month the absolutely wonderful and gorgeous CHRISSY and TriTri took part and I seriously love these girlies so much!

Reverse Contouring and Highlighting

And next up I have this video which I originally saw on Katie Barnett's channel. She had me in absolute stitches and I just knew I wanted to give this fun challenge a go myself lol!

So there you are, my little catch up post is complete. I haven't really mentioned Christmas yet in this blogmas post so the song of the day is Rocking Around The Christmas Tree. I hope you're all enjoying blogmas :)

Izzy K xxx

Blogmas, Day 3 (2016) | Top 5 Winter Makeup Items

Hey guys,

Today I've posted about all my favourite Winter makeup items. However, this suits the theme of my other blog much better so I posted it over on Izzy K: Reviews & Chats and you can check out that post here.

The song of the day is Jingle Bell Rock (The Mean Girl's version of course!) Sorry this post was short and sweet, but I just wanted to share my post on here to keep my blogmas going on this blog if that makes sense lol! What are your favourite makeup items for this time of year?

Izzy K xxx

Blogmas, Day 2 (2016) | Life Ups & Downs

Hi guys,

Today's post won't actually be "Christmassy" as such, it will be more of a life update. I know, I know, day 2 of blogmas and I've already gone off topic, but I just had a few things I wanted to share.

I don't know what it is about this time of year, but for some reason life's ups and downs seem to exaggerated and turned more dramatic. I mean, you have the obvious ups from the holidays and the Christmas spirit, the festive music and obviously the food (lots and lots of food). But then you also have the holiday stress, such as sorting out presents, finding time to see everyone, and having to stay on top of life in general.

I'm the sort of person who is genuinely really overdramatic for no reason. I seriously need to find ways to cope with stress because, in general I have a hard time with it anyway. So any type of pressure turns "normal-stressed-out-Izzy" into "Super-stressed-out-Izzy", so basically I need to find a way to chill. 

One thing that's been causing a bit of the ol' stress is the fact that yesterday I sat my driving test... again... and still managed to fail it. For some reason, I can never cope well in an exam environment. Under normal conditions, sure I can do it. But as soon as you say the words "test" my body turns to jelly and my mind to mush, so good luck getting me to do anything. I just find it particularly annoying because the waiting list for taking the test is so long, and I really want to just tick off having passed my driving test. 

On top of that I've just been generally stressed about life admin. I'm supposed to be applying for uni, yet I have no idea what uni to go to, or how to write my personal statement. As you may have gathered from my blog already, writing is not my strong point. On top of that I really really really want to spend more time with my friends and family this holiday. Apart from that all takes time and often money that I don't have. Especially when I want to treat my friends with presents anyway because they really deserve it for being the best people alive. It just seems like when you manage to squeeze in time to meet up with people during the holidays, you don't have the money. And when you do have the money, you can't find the time urrghh!

But I refuse to simply look at the negative sides of things. It's blogmas, and there's no need for constant pessimism. You gotta take into account the little things in life and really appreciate them. For example, I'm always under the impression that everyone can do everything so much better than I can. But I get little reassurements here and there that I actually do know some things. Like, for example, one of the managers at my work asked me a question because she needed my help. And I could actually answer it... correctly!

And apart from that, the ups are surrounding us all this time of year, it's just a matter of spotting all the small things in life. I'm learning to really appreciate things and not take them for granted. The sorts of things that really make my day now are the following:

• When my mum has my tea cooked for me ready for when I get back from work
• Admiring the Christmas lights on the streets
• The dark evenings which make you feel really cosy when you're wrapped up in bed
• Scented candles
• Hanging out with friends
• Watching  and quoating all your favourite Christmas movies
• All the Christmas tuuuunes!

So in general I do have to say my life really isn't worth complaining about that much and I do have things to be extremely grateful for. Wow writing this post actually was kinda like therapy. I think it's just a matter of me not being melodramatic and overact when I start to feel like I'm losing control of things.

The moral of this post is don't worry be happy now. And with that said the song of the day is Don't Worry, Be Happy by Bobby McFerrin. I hope you're all having a lovely December,

Izzy K xxx

Blogmas, Day 1 (2016) | Another Year!

Yes that's right, it's time for that time of year again...BLOGMAS!

I'm very excited to announce that it's officiallly my 3rd year taking part in Blogmas (where you write everyday in December until the 25th in case you're wondering) and I honestly couldn't imagine December without this little tradition anymore. Ever since the 26th of December 2015 I've been excited to write this very post, announcing that I'll be doing it again #notevenjoking

So I'm gonna do my absolute best to post every single day. Because who even needs to finish their uni application before the deadline when you can update a few people who are interested to read about your life, right?! And every Saturday I'll be doing my proper post on my other blog, Izzy K: Reviews & Chats just to keep that going through December too. 

Initially I was hoping to do Vlogmas this year. The last 2 years that I took part in Blogmas I was still in 6th form and sitting my A Levels, so I had no time to vlog every single day and get it up. And I convinced myself I'd be able to do vlogmas in my gap year, but alas it hasn't quite turned out that way. Unfortunately, I'm pretty busy with work, uni applications and just life in general. So I'm not even joking when I say there's no way anyone would want me to daily vlog because all it would be is me announcing that I've come home from work and that I'm watching youtube.

And I just thought I'd update you on what will be different about this year's Blogmas. Instead of posting about Christmas every single day, I'll through the odd life update in there too. So in a way I'll be doing daily blogging, instead of daily vlogging. It's not that I don't love Christmas, because anyone that knows me, knows that's not the case at all! It's simply just that I've covered most of the typical Christmas topics in previous years and I don't want to cheat blogmas by repeating blog posts. So I'm gonna be switching it up between Christmas themed posts, or random posts.

There we are, Blogmas 2016 has officially begun and I can't wait to read everyone else's posts! The song of the day is Fairytale of New York by The Pogues because that's my all time favourite Christmas song. Are you taking part in Blogmas this year? 

Izzy K xxx