Christmas swap box America v Britain

So I had heard about people doing this on YouTube and I had seen them do Halloween and Christmas swap boxes!

I had really wanted to do one but it’s hard because unless you know a person/friends in the country, you have to just go on pure faith you will get something back if it’s just a random person (don’t do that!)

However I found myself a Christmas group on Instagram through other Christmas groups, they then formed a small but perfectly formed private group. We have some lovely people from all over the world in the group and we share our Christmas traditions/recipes and it’s fun to learn about what each of us do at Christmas time! We became friends over the year or two that we’ve spoken to each other. We chat daily and check in on how we are all doing and what we get up to!

Now some people might be sceptical but I think because we’ve built up friendship over a long period I felt it was ok to do - so don’t worry!

I spoke to one of the lovely ladies in the group about doing the swap box after sharing my love of the American Christmas style. We both agreed it would be great fun! We were meant to do it at Christmas but Covid was causing havoc on the postal systems here and in America so we delayed it. Here’s my first attempt at fall/autumn decorations. Phoebe absolutely loves Pumpkins and orange is her favourite colour, it’s my new favourite colour too!

As you can see, I need as much help with my autumn/fall decorations from my American friend as possible! I received my parcel first and it was adorable. We had spoken about what we liked about each other’s traditions which we then included!

I love the American fall decor and I love the ”Hallmark” decoration, like the red truck is so lovely! I love how they put massive trees in the back! I remember struggling to getting my tree in my Nissan Micra! Thankfully we got ours delivered this year! Anyway, I digress!

The white and red decorations are perfect for me to add to my red and white candy canes theme on our main tree which will be our 8 foot faux tree. I love the little sweets, they remind me of the ones we had on my childhood Christmas trees!

The pumpkin salt and pepper shakers are adorable and I’m definitely going to be using them with my British version of Thanksgiving (which is my adoption anniversary!) I can’t wait to use them! They look like the pumpkins in the photos below.

I’m so happy I’ve also got my first ever pumpkin spice, and it’s so delicious! What a treat! The fall gifts definitely remind me of our pumpkin picking last year!

We had great fun going to a pumpkin farm and I absolutely loved the sea of orange of the pumpkins! We had a lovely day and Phoebe was dressed up as a little pumpkin!

Now for my swap box I decided to go pretty hard on the British Christmas theme! So I decided to put a Christmas pudding in as this is definitely a firm British tradition (you have to set it on fire after dowsing it in brandy!) Although my hubby’s family don’t really like it, I love it! I also included some tea in a postbox (as you do!) and a London bus decoration which are very common around London and you can see all the Christmas lights, driving around them!

I also found these cute salt and pepper shakers, one of the Queen and her Corgi! I bought these after I got my little pumpkin ones and I found these! How cute are they?

I also included some handmade gifts! A little Christmas chopping board that I pyrographied and a wooden spoon to mix lovely festive baking. I made a heart hanging decoration of Tartan which is a bit of my heritage!

I had great fun finding things to include and making the gifts! It definitely got me in the festive spirit (after feeling mixed emotions in this pandemic and all the rules-but this cheered me up) as we couldn’t really see family this year it was nice to receive a friendmas parcel! I can’t wait to do it as part of my Christmas tradition, like my Christmas stockings for the hospital! Hopefully we will be allowed to do proper Christmas shopping this year in shops under the Christmas lights and listening to festive singers and the hustle and bustle of the festive period!

Anyway bye Festive Friends XX