Christmas comes this time each year..

Happy Christmas everyone! I’ve been taking it easy the last few days and enjoying getting into the festive spirt. I spent the afternoon of Christmas eve with my mam, getting our nails done at Malmaison. The Malmaison spa offer a range of treatments including my latest obsession, gel polish manicures. And after spotting their tweet to say gel manicures were on offer for £20 throughout December, I thought it’d be a nice little Christmas treat for me and my mam! Having been pampered and primped in the spa and with our newly manicured mits, we weren’t quite ready to leave straight away so decided to treat ourselves to afternoon tea. Served on a slate, Malmaison‘s afternoon tea is a much sleeker and less twee afternoon treat. Offering up a selection of finger sandwiches and cakes, one was more than enough to share, and the staff were helpful enough to point that out to us! So we opted for two pots of tea (served with a mini gingerbread man), and an afternoon tea between us.

Situated in the old Co-op building and offering amazing views of the quayside, Newcastle Malmaison is definitely my favourite hotel in Newcastle. We sat in the bar area for our afternoon tea: enjoying views of the river and catching up with the day’s newspapers. After leaving feeling pampered and relaxed, I got home and swapped pressies with Lou. After she left, it took about five minutes for me to change into my PJs and snuggle up to read A Christmas Carol.. It’s one of those things I’ve meant to do for so many years now and this year seemed as good as any! Yesterday we had a pretty quiet day, spoiling each other with too many presents, overeating, indulging in far too much prosecco.

Hope you all had an amazing day. Did anyone get any nice surprises?

jacket: Barbour (with Liberty print lining), suede shorts: Topshop, striped top: H&M, fair isle skirt: Urban Outfitters