Top Teacher Christmas Gifts They’ll Love To Receive, Including Gorgeous Diaries & Planners From Ryman Stationery

It’s that time of year again, the toss up, do you gift your children’s teachers candles, soaps, or sweets? Well, this year you can give them something a little different, but something they be able to use and really appreciate. 

Ryman Stationery’s online store has a wealth of gift ideas, including lots of beautiful diaries and planners. My absolute favourite pick has to be the gorgeous Zodiac themed notebooks, which would be suited to a family gift, as you will have to know their birthday to work out which to purchase!

This year my son has a male teacher for the first time, so I chose this very cool Retro TV Games Console, which is actually on sale for £7.99 right now (I hope he isn’t reading this!) It plugs directly into your tv and had over 200 classic games, perfect for family fun on Christmas Day.

There are also gift guides in the Ryman Christmas Shop, with presents at every price point. Everything I’ve featured in this post is under £15, with most being under £10, so super for that tricky to buy teacher gift, or stocking fillers for your loved ones.

You can take advantage of free shipping for orders over £40, or free click and collect for all orders. 

Have a nosy and try to resist buying yourself some fresh, shiny stationery if you can!

Sneak a Little Slice of Christmas into Everyday. Xmas 2016 Launches at M&S.

31st October, Halloween, 1st November, its Christmas. The population always seems split this month. There are those who think it's far too soon to think about Christmas, then there is festive loving folks like myself who are ready to dive straight in to turkey and cranberry everything.

Marks & Spencer's food hall is starting to turn holly berry red, with their Christmas party food and festive flavours appearing in every department. So I visited the Sprucefiled store to choose from the little items you can start adding to your day now, without having a full on turkey dinner. There are dozens of products you can pick for lunch and dinner to get you in the Christmas mood. 

Pigs in Blankets £1.75 : Scotch Egg £2 : Mince pies £1.20 : Turkey wrap £3

Every year M&S bring out a Christmas lunch menu for their takeaway food. That includes sandwiches, salads, sausage rolls, wraps, juice and mini desserts for one. This is the 11th year that they have partnered with the charity Shelter, donating 5% of every sale to the homeless charity.

Soup £2.50 : Turkey feast sandwich £3.25 : Sausage roll £1.75

Club sandwich £4.50 : Juice £1.50 : Rolls £3.25

Profiteroles £2 : Cheesecake £2 : Macaroons £1.75

Moving on to the rest of the Food Hall, we see the traditional M&S crazy crisp varieties.  Prosecco or Bucks Fizz handcooked crisps are pretty unusual, as well as turkey & maple syrup, but the flavour I'm most excited about is Blackstick's Blue cheese. I already love the blue cheese itself, and the spreadable cheese you can get too, so these are right up my street.

Crisps all 2 for £3

Christmas flavours are also reaching the shelves of the confectionary and biscuit aisles. Even Percy has had a Christmas makeover. 

Jaffacakes £1 : Marzipan £1

One last deal I have to mention. It's just arrived in store & I anticipate it selling quickly, so if you think it's a suitable gift you should think about buying it while there is a good choice available. 

You get a lovely, thick felt stocking, which you can fill with three items of your choice for £10. There are sacks of minty sweets, chocolate skittle games, chocolate gingerbread men, snowball sweeties, winter caramels and various Christmas themed games. 

All 3 for £10 plus free stocking

I choose the decorate your own lolly kit, decorate your own biscuits, and the crazy chocolate cracker. For £10 you could divide the items as three separate presents, or use the stocking as a gift bag to give the selection of your choice to someone. Or, like me, you could pick them for yourself! 

What's your favourite M&S Christmas product?  Check out what else is in store on the M&S website.

Enchantingly retro Toys at the Winter Pop Up, Bangor.

At lunch time I scooted down to Bangor to grab a 24" slice of pizza from Little Wing.

Bangor was busy so after a lap with no parking spaces I finally found somewhere in Dufferin Avenue (the steep hill road beside the train station). 

I just so happened to get a space outside a curiously lovely little shop- Winter Pop Up. 

The store is here only for the Christmas season and stocks European toys with a classic, retro flair. Francesca who was in charge today is absolutely lovely and chatted to me while I snapped the toys that took my fancy. The mid-century dolls' house was very hard to not want to just but for myself. 

I spotted dozens of gifts that I would be buying for Baby Spence if it was next year. I think while the Winter Pop Up is there, I'll buy some stuff in advance for my brother & his wife's baby arriving in Spring. 

Francesca told me they are stocking from the following websites- 

 Red Ruby Rouge

 Little Citizens Boutique.com

and help from

 Refound Online.com

You can also interact with the store on their Facebook Page.

I've been in Little Citizen's Boutique in Holywood before. 

I  blogged about it back in 2013 when I visited it with Smix.

So, so many quirky but excellently designed kids' products. Why not visit the Dufferin Avenue Pop Up while they are there. 

Keep an eye open to spot it, this is how it looks from outside. 

In the meantime, anyone want to buy me a house? 

M&S Christmas Party Food 2015- Christmas Tree Pizzas, Churros & Chocolate Clutch Bags.

When I was a kid Christmas party nibbles meant cocktail sausages and breadsticks. Now thanks to M&S festive food includes smoked salmon filled shells and Brie & cranberry tarts. The 'second wave' of seasonal treats have arrived in Marks & Spencers food hall, and with  two for one and 3 for 2 offers across the party food range this could be the best time to stock up & freeze for the end of the month's celebrations.

Seafood served in shells is a party I want to go to  

The pizza trees are so simple but effective. We had them last year, so this is a repeat buy. Perfect for kids while the grown ups have the fancier food that might be too rich for children. 

These mini posh hot dogs are the evolution of the humble party cocktail sausage. The pork belly I highly recommend, again it's a repeat buy for me from last year.

Not a party food, but part of the Grill range, if you can't wait for Christmas dinner then why not have a teatime of turkey, cranberry, bacon & stuffing burgers? 

As with every year you can buy a range of tasty pre made stuffing to save time during preparation of the Big Meal. 

Carrying on its the savoury treats, it wouldn't be Christmas for me without a fortnight of serious cheese overdosing. I'm serious about the Cornish Cruncher and my true love Blacksticks Blue.

I'm keeping my eye out for the cheese balls that I loved from the party food range last year, but if that doesn't make a return then I'll have to make do with this almost tennis ball sized offering that's £5.

I might pick these up for New Years, as I still haven't tried haggis. 

When I'm picking up food hall goodies for blogging I always have to call up to Sprucefield. It's a chance to nosy round their flagship store with huge home & clothing departments. They've added a massive Christmas store department with everything from decorations to cards, presents, wrapping paper and novelty crackers. A lot of the wrap, cards etc are on 3 for 2 offers too.

Back in the Food Hall and onto the sweet gifts and party foods. Making a change from the traditional shortbread tin gift, this lantern took my fancy with a design you could display all year round.

Fancy marshmallows are a fairly recent fad, but I love them. Snowflake shaped mallows are even better. 

I also spotted these 'create your own hamper' kits for £10. Super  for creating a personal gift for someone who has M&S favourites but also really useful for putting together a hamper for families with dietary needs like nut allergies or gluten intolerance, who otherwise might not get to enjoy premade hamper gifts.

These limited edition golden chocolate shoes and clutch bags are very cool. I'm neither a shoe or bag aholic, I think they'd have to make a chocolate taxidermy stag head for me!

I imagine with both designs being limited to 2000, they'll only be available in selected stores. If you fancy buying one for someone it might be worth phoning your local store to check if they have any in stock. 

You can order specially made cakes in store, with this cool penguin design only costing £20. 

There are so many shiny sweet gifts to choose from. 

I definitely had to grab some of the fancy mallows. Pistachio anything is always good. These would make an excellent alternative gift for a teacher, rather than the usual deluge of shower gels!

Cute carrot cake muffins, part of the 3 for 2 party deal.

I'm probably one of the few people who doesn't go Continental Market mad every December, but I do love Churros. Now I can get a fix with these ready to eat beauties. 

M&S seem to out edible glitter on 90% of their Christmas desserts- and that is BRILLIANT. I wish I could eat shimmering everything. 

So I think there will be one more pre-Christmas M&S food blog post, so watch out for the last selection of goodies in a week or two. 

Hillmount Garden Centre, Bangor: Christmas Gift Guide 2015

Visit Santa

We popped along to  Hillmount Garden Centre, Bangor's Ladies' Night 2015 this evening to take advantage of 10% off across the whole store, as well as many other discounts.

There is a free to view lovely little winter trail of moving figures downstairs

So is it worth making a visit for your own Christmas shopping? 

Well Hillmount is one of those garden centres that sells everything for the whole home too. I don't know if these places are just a middle class, Northern Irish phenomenon, but you'll get candles, Cath Kidston everything, cookware, jams, all sorts stocked there too.  

Also available Yankee & Woodwick

My prime  'oh my word they've got those!' moment was discovering they stock Powder Socks and Accessories. Menary's in Bangor have the socks, but Hillmount have the muffs, gloves, headbands and even the gift bags.

Ladies' night off to a bustling start

If you challenged yourself to do ALL your gift shopping under their one roof, you might just do it. They've a great toy selection for all age ranges, and Smix added to his Christmas wish list rightly! 

Pixar's Good Dinosaur merch in stock

Seatbelt covers for comfier journeys

Crafters and bakers are also well catered for with two healthily sized sections catering to each hobby. 

You are spoilt for choice Christmas decoration wise. They've fake trees, real trees, fibre optic trees and absolutely reams of stuff to put on any of them. I was tickled by these Stormont & Harland and Wolfe baubles, hand painted £8.99 each.

Anyone for a tea pot tree? 

Your sweet tooth is all set with these stocking sized classic sweet packs. 

And finally, something a bit gardeny 

My One Black Friday Shout Out: Free Shipping & Free Mystery Gifts on The Hand Drawn Creative's Etsy this Weekend

I think I'm turning into a grumpy old woman, as the Black Friday offers have rolled into my inbox all week, for  the day after our non-existent Thanksgiving, they've gone straight in the electronic 'trash can'. They didn't have Black Friday in my day!

I decided to give one small business a special Black Friday shoutout, and that's Neal at Hand Drawn Creative. He's my fellow mid-century loving, Bangorian, and I'm ever in his debt blog post wise as he made my The World of Kitsch banner heading for me for free.

Before you accuse me of being one of those pains in the arses of the creative collect, I did NOT ask Neal to throw something together for free, he actually approached me with the design he took upon himself to doodle up one day. Of course I adore it! I've had it printed on various things including chocolate and my own t-shirt!

 As you can see from the top image there is free shipping all weekend, and free mystery gifts.

Neal's store has a variety of prints in different genres, but my absolute favourite is the range of renderings of 70s & 80s Fisher Price toys. We kept some in my parents' attic, and I bought some at car boot sales such as the boat bus in this print.

We already had Smix when these prints came out, but my brother & wife are expecting their first child, so I've sent them a selection of the prints for their home.  

Take a look and take advantage of the Black Friday weekend. 

London Underground Train & Station Tent from Monster Factory

Imagine you are five years old again. Imagine waking up on Christmas morning to see Santa has delivered your very own Underground train, and a ticket station. I would have keeled over with excitement, which is pretty much the reaction of my five year old when it arrived this afternoon from www.TheMonsterFactory.com

This huge set folds down into a tiny box for storage and is waterproof for outdoor play in warmer months.

For £59.99 it's a great showpiece to your Christmas morning, and will keep brothers & sisters busy while you're putting the finishing touches to dinner.

There's also an adult sized HUGE Underground train on www.TheMonsterFactory.com for a whole gang of you to share at a festival or campsite. You'd definitely recognise your tent amongst the masses then.

Make sure you also take a look at their VW Campervan tents (I've featured them in my December Junior Magazine column) and if you have any questions you can find them here-
www.facebook.com/themonsterfactoryltd
www.twitter.com/monsterfactry (no o!)

I'll be lucky if I can get my son out of the tunnel to go to bed tonight. I can envisage the duvet being dragged inside to sleep on!