So I'm sending you this Christmas card, to say its nice to have you here

Mama and Papa T took a little trip across the pennines this weekend for our annual family trip to York. York is pretty magical at any time of year, but at Christmas it just has such a lovely atmosphere (despite the horrendous crowds on a Saturday afternoon). We got lots of Christmas shopping done, and for once my Mum actually suggested something she'd like me to buy her for Christmas as opposed to every other year when she's wandered around shops with her eyes firmly blinkered to the floor just in case she happened to give any indication that she might like us to buy her anything. My Dad and I often find ourselves wondering what would actually happen if one year we actually listened to her when she insisted that she "doesn't want anything". 

 I love how we've carried on our tradition of visiting York every Christmas even though we end up there a few times during the year when my Mum and Dad come to see me in Leeds, it always does wonders for getting us in the Christmas spirit. I always love wandering around the town towards the end of the day when the sky is getting darker and the fairy lights start twinkling down the little higgledy piggledy streets, York has the loveliest decorations every year; they do things in a very classy fashion with lots of Christmas trees fixed onto the walls of shops down the little old streets. 

I do seem to waffle on about York a lot in my blog posts, but seriously, I challenge you to find a prettier city! I'd love to know what gets you guys into the Christmas spirit. Do you have any traditions that you do every year with your family?

coat: Topshop, dress: Asos, boots: Topshop, hat: H&M

I've fallen totally in love with my new hat. I bought it as part of my "This Charming Man" costume (yes, it involved a moustache...) for a Song Title fancy dress pub crawl the other week thinking it wouldn't matter if I didn't wear it again, but actually its doing a pretty good job of securing itself a place in my regular wardrobe. Plus it was only £7.99... loads cheaper than all the similar ones I've seen in Topshop/Urban Outfitters. Result.

Step into Christmas: Elton John

(my housemate and I started off December 1st by belting out lots of Christmas songs this morning... I try to resist cheesy music for the other 11 months of the year but in December I just can't get enough!)

You gave me magical, I gave you wonderful

There are a few places I always seem to waffle on about on my little piece of the internet. York is definitely one of those places. Its been a firm favourite as one of my top UK cities since I was a nipper, it was always somewhere we came to year after year for Christmas shopping and usually a trip to the National Railway Museum to keep Papa T happy. Last weekend, my Mum and Dad came up to Leeds for a visit and my Dad fancied yet another trip to see the trains (apparently they've got a bit of a special collection on show at the moment!). My Mum and I don't quite share my Dad's enthusiasm for locomotives, but I can spend ages looking at the old passenger carriages and posters for holiday destinations from the past- I love thinking about how people spent their holidays and went on long journeys before cars and aeroplanes started taking over!

Anyway, it was a beautiful, sunny day on Sunday so it was perfect for meandering around the town after my Dad had taken thousands of pictures of the engines so I thought it'd be rude of me not to share a few snaps! 

shirt: Forever 21, dress: Primark, shoes: Topshop

This is one of my favourite pictures of the day. Most of you will probably be drooling at the Mulberry outlet in the shot, but not me- for starters I don't really understand the fascination with uber-expensive handbags (although maybe if I had endless amounts of money I'd feel a little differently...). For me, it has always been a bit of a family tradition on our trips to York to have a good chuckle at Back Swinegate as it reminds us so much of my Nan. She was such a sweet little lady who never really moaned about anything but would always, always make a point of telling everybody who came to visit her "ooh my back's a swine today".  We took a picture of the street once when I was younger and showed her and the rest of the family- she couldn't help but find it funny with the rest of us in fits of giggles around her.

Biblical- Biffy Clyro

(this weekend I'll mostly be trying to pretend that I'm not actually riddled with jealousy about everybody watching Biffy and Co at Reading and Leeds)

Smiles of the week: Will you still love me when I'm no longer young and beautiful?

When I first started these weekly smiles posts I fully intended them to be written on a Sunday evening as a little round up of the good things that had happened in my life that week. Apparently I'm incapable of sticking to this (despite the fact that I spent most of last night eating olives from the comfort of my bed... wild lifestyle right there), but actually my laziness has one advantage when I end up putting these posts together on a Monday. Like most of the working population, I am not a fan of Mondays, never have been, never will be. Thinking about the good bits of the previous week on a dreary Monday is the perfect remedy for the start of the week blues, giving a glimmer of hope that things always get better and more exciting as the week goes on.

Here's a few bits and bobs from the last week that I spent the day daydreaming about from my desk.

Experiencing the wonder that is The Great Gatsby. Hands down one of the best films I've seen in years. It was an absolute visual feast, had an incredible soundtrack (which despite being completely unrelated to the 1920's setting was absolutely perfect for the film, and it portrayed the story and the characters PERFECTLY. What. A. Film.

Experiencing the wonder that is The Great Gatsby with a jug of pimms from a squishy purple sofa. We ventured to the new Everyman cinema in Leeds Trinity to test it out and it turned out to be the absolute perfect setting to watch such a decadent film.

Experiencing the wonder that is The Great Gatsby after a bloody delicious pizza and slab of sticky toffee pudding in the cinema's pizzeria.

Taking a trip to York on Saturday for a little adventure with two of my favourites. We'd not made any real plans for the day as we'd crossed our fingers for sunny skies so we could sit in a pub by the river for the afternoon. Naturally the English weather didn't agree with us so we spent half of the day hiding from the rain.

Luckily for us, hiding in the rain turned into a trip to York's Chocolate Story. I've been before but was in no way going to turn down another trip there and was very giddy to discover that we could make a whopping great chocolate lollipop each.

Going out for food and a few quiet drinks on Saturday night and not getting in until 3.30am.

Realising that one of the bars we were in seemed to have a strict facial hair dress code for all men. Everywhere we turned we were surrounded by hipster beards, Charlie deemed the beardy folk as having a 'beardiform'. At the time this was the funniest/cleverest thing in the world. It may have just been the rum talking.

Being high fived repeatedly by a bunch of middle-aged, balding men. We think they'd just discovered what a high five was and thought that using it as a greeting made them really hip hop and happening to us young 'uns.

Spending most of my Sunday wrapped up in a duvet. I've not had a proper lie in for ages so it was very well deserved (and very much needed after the night before).

Will you still love me?- Lana Del Rey

(I'm really not a fan of Lana usually but this song was just 100% right for the film!)

Because I want to see people and I want to see life

The start of the festive season, for as long as I can remember, has always been defined by a trip to York early in December with my parents. York has always been one of my favourite cities with its beautiful cobbled streets and quaint Christmassy charm, and despite the horrendous crowds, it still maintains a lovely cheerful atmosphere that you just don't experience on a Saturday in many other places.

This year, the annual Kaz and Papa T supermarket sweep style trip to Next to buy all my Mum's Christmas presents in the space of 15 minutes was replaced by a trip to York's Chocolate Story which was really interesting, largely due to the abundance of samples for visitors. I think my Mum might have engineered this chocolate filled detour to spare herself yet another year of socks, umbrellas and slippers from Next (its hard to be creative with present ideas for the woman whose mantra from mid-November onwards year in year out is "Don't buy me anything, I mean it, I don't need anything, don't worry about me"... my poor Mum agonises over buying everybody else the perfect present, god forbid we should try and return the favour).

Anyway, I was a bit too busy stuffing my face with samples  too engrossed in the Chocolate story to actually take any photos but I took plenty of pretty little pictures of festive York so I'll bore you to tears with those instead.