The Calm Christmas Podcast with Beth Kempton

S2 Ep4: LOVE (gratitude + gifting)

• Beth Kempton • Season 2 • Episode 4

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It’s time to dive into Christmas gifting, with a host of ideas for mindful, meaningful gifts and some innovative ways to wrap your presents to surprise and delight. We have inspiration from JRR Tolkien, Michelle Mackintosh, Hollie McNish, Laura Pashby, Laura Fleiter and Kerstin Niehoff, and some lovely festive projects to try. Let this episode inspire you to give more love while spending less money and creating less waste this year.

Featured in this episode:

Ingredients list for featured recipe (Serves 1)

  • 2 bananas
  • 1 apple
  • ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 2 tablespoons milk
  • 1 tablespoon quick-cooking oats
  • 2 teaspoons almond butter
  • 3 pitted dates
  • 2 spiced spekuloos biscuits, like Lotus biscuits
  • 1 tsp dried cranberries

"Cliff House Top o the World Near the North Pole Wednesday December 21st 1927 My dear people: there seem to get more and more of you every year. I get poorer and poorer: still I hope that I have managed to bring you all something you wanted, though not everything you asked for (Michael and Christopher! I havent heard from John this year. I suppose he is growing too big and wont even hang up his stocking soon). It has been so bitter at the North Pole lately that the North Polar Bear has spent most of the time asleep and has been less use than usual this Christmas. Also, it has been very dark here since winter began. We havent seen the Sun, of course, for three months, but there are no Northern Lights this year you remember the awful accident last year? There will be none again until the end of 1928. The North Polar Bear has got his cousin(and distant friend) the Great Bear to shine extra bright for us, and this week I have hired a comet to do my packing by, but it doesnt work as well. " Those snippets are from the wonderful book Letters from Father Christmas by JRR Tolkien, edited by Baillie Tolkien and this is The Calm Christmas Podcast with me. Beth Kempton. Every year JRR Tolkien's children received precious letters addressed to their home in Oxford, and sent from the North Pole, written in the most beautiful script, often with detailed illustrations and tales of all the naughty animals causing mischief up there at the top of the world. Those letters have been gathered into a lovely little book, which to me epitomises what is special about giving at this time of year. It's not about how much we spend, but about what we offer, how we dream it up, and how we deliver it. Our theme this week is Love for this episode is all about gratitude and gifting. It seems fitting with Thanksgiving coming up in the US this week. It's the 'less spending more thought' episode, all about mindful gifting and wrapping. I'm going to be doing some secret book drops myself here and there this week, offering surprise gifts to strangers and getting in the mood for the season of gifting. The other day I took my friend Holly to breakfast and grilled her on her ideas for mindful gifts. Holly is a brilliant photographer - she takes most of my photos. She's also a paper cutting artist you can find her on Instagram at @byHollyBobbins. She is one of the most creative people I know, which is saying a lot, I know lots of creative people! But she seems to always come up with the most beautiful, thoughtful gifts, mostly handmade. Last year she gave me a handmade notebook which was covered in leather that she'd upcycled from an old sofa, absolutely genius idea. She also made handbags and all sorts of other things out of this old sofa. And she also gave me a Christmas card featuring a tiny leather angel from the same sofa that you could remove and hang on the tree as a decoration. Such a wonderful idea. The year before that she gave me a papercut of a deer in a forest, it was absolutely gorgeous and framed, and it was to capture the essence of the front cover of the UK edition of my book Calm Christmas when it first came out. Holly told me that she's making her famous Thai curry paste in big batches this year and packaging it up beautifully with all the dry ingredients needed to make her favourite curry. And she's giving that to friends who are in need of some winter warming, which is another lovely idea. I hope her friends aren't listening or they'll know what they're getting. Anyway, presents, presents, let's talk about presents. It's hard to think about Christmas and not think about presents. And I for one love dreaming up gift ideas and spending ages wrapping, but it can also be a real source of stress. It can be a real financial burden, and it can be pretty wasteful, too. So let's talk about it today. Every year, I see people filling bags and baskets with special offers in the run up to Christmas and I hear them muttering "Oh that will do for so-and-so" as they hurriedly stuff these things into their bag. But we all know that the likelihood of that person's ideal gift somehow coinciding with the latest three-for-two offer at the supermarket is really pretty low. If you're choosing any old bargain as a gift for someone, for me, that actually begs the question whether you should be giving them a gift at all. I invite you to take a moment to think about each friend or relative that you really want to give a gift to this year. Think about those that you feel like you probably should but don't actually want to and maybe give yourself permission to release them from the contract of gifting because if you give something to them, they're going to feel obliged to give something to you. So maybe that's the best thing you can give those people this year. And then for the ones that you really want to give a gift to, take some time to think about what they need right now. You might even want to discuss it with them - ahead of time take them out for coffee and have a chat with them. Ask them what their secret dream is, or what's holding them back from doing what they want to be doing, or what they're curious about at the moment. Those kind of questions can give you clues to something that would be a really meaningful gift, and then your present, when they get it, is going to remind them that you really listened to what they said. Personally, I have three gifting guideposts that I use, when I'm trying to decide on a gift for someone special. I ask myself, is it mindful? Is it meaningful? And is it memorable? We can dig deep into each of these, but just to give you a couple of ideas. So when I'm asking, Is it mindful? I mean, is it mindful of what they've experienced this year? Is it appropriate given the current context of their life? Is it appropriate given their view of the environment? This is a really, really important one, I think. Is it appropriate, given their thoughts about parenting, if you're giving a gift to their children, for example? Is it in line with what you can afford? There is no point putting yourself under financial pressure just to give a gift to somebody that... how many people that you really care about would want you to do that? And also, importantly, is it in line with what they can afford to give in return, that you don't skew that social gifting contract? And then when I say 'Is it meaningful?' I mean, is it linked to something that they care about, rather than something that you care about? I have a tendency to give people stationery, because I think it's a lovely present. But it's probably because I love stationery. And so I have to think about when I'm going to do that, is this person actually going to want this notebook? Are they somebody with the dream of writing a novel, in which case, it's a lovely idea? Or is it just that I really like it? So I'm going to give it to them? Those kinds of things. Does your present somehow strengthen the bond between the two of you? Or does it recognise their gifts and talents and encourage them? Perhaps it represents some aspects of your relationship, or reminds them of a precious memory that you share. You know, is it personal? Those kinds of questions are good ones to ask yourself when you're trying to figure out is this idea meaningful for them? And then, is it memorable? Is there something about it that makes it different from that any old item grabbed off the shelf at the last moment. Does the gift itself, or perhaps the way you present it, surprise and delight in some way. Always love a treasure hunt, leading to a present. It almost doesn't matter what the present is, if you give someone a treasure hunt! You know, that kind of thing? Does it perhaps remind the recipient of a really precious experience they had? Is it something that they're going to really treasure? And this I think is a good one for our times. Does it allow the recipient to build value through their use, or consumption of it? So you know, buying someone instead of a thing, a skills development course or a sewing machine because you know that they've got a dream of launching a fabric business,. That kind of thing. How are you showing that you really notice what's important to them by what you give them. All these kinds of questions can lead you to great ideas for presents that are really thoughtful, and bring real joy to the person receiving them. In terms of actual ideas for mindful gifts, if you have a copy of my book, Calm Christmas, make sure you check in there for details of how to get hold of that free digital Christmas Care Package that comes with the book, because it's got an absolute ton of mindful gifting ideas in it, but here's just a few off the top of my head. You could write a story or a poem for someone and frame it and give it to them. You could offer them a week's worth of dog sitting so they can go away on holiday. You could give them a diary that's filled with pre-booked outings or pre-arranged get togethers with old friends so as they use that throughout the coming year, when they get to Saturday, the third of whichever month they know they're going to meet Sarah that kind of thing and that you've set all that up for them. That would be an amazing present. You could do a Magical Mystery Tour of their town or somewhere that's very special to both of you. Perhaps if it's something they're interested in, you could enter them into a half marathon and commit to be their training buddy for the next few months. Give them a set of seeds with handwritten recipes to make the most of what they grow. Offer to organise their home office so they can finally get their own business off the ground. If that's something... you know if they've spent the last year complaining what a mess their offices and you're an absolute super organiser and then what a wonderful thing to offer to someone. You could chop a whole pile of wood for their fire and give it to them in a big basket. You know, if you have been trying pottery this year, you could give them a handmade mug filled with marshmallows and hot chocolate powder. Knit them fingerless gloves for those winter days when they're working on a novel that you know, they're secretly writing. These kinds of things, you know, you will know your friends really well. But just something that's a little bit beyond the thing itself can make it really, really special. And of course, it's not just what you give, but how you give it. When I was researching calm Christmas, I came across an anthropological study of gift giving in the US, which concluded that we wrap presents to transform them from impersonal commodities into sentimental gifts, which actually makes real sense when you think about it. And the study suggested that homemade gifts and particularly food gifts are less likely to be extravagantly wrapped, because they're already deeply personal by virtue of the thing being made by hand. But interestingly, if we take a thing, and we wrap it beautifully, it adds so much more value to it. So perhaps it's the case that the wrapping is as important as the gift itself. We could potentially spend a lot less on the gifts, if we do buy them, if we're going to wrap it beautifully. Of course, the alternative is to make something by hand and that can often save us lots of money, too. I must admit that I enjoy wrapping even more than thinking about presents for people. That's probably influenced by the many years I spent living in Japan where wrapping has been elevated to an art form. There are just so many possibilities with fabric and paper, ribbons and tags, and so many possibilities with recycled stuff. I love using old maps to write to wrap up things. Sometimes I use my children's drawings. I might have... I actually ended up with a second copy of a really beautiful children's book last year and I ended up - I hope my mum's not listening because she hates me defacing books - but I cut up the book, and I've used it for wrapping small gifts, and it's absolutely beautiful. You know, it's an illustrated children's book. There were so many things that we can use to wrap presents. And each of those decisions for me is a tiny joy. And I think the wrapping process can be deeply therapeutic. I know not everyone agrees. And Mr. K is not a lot of friends with sellotape. I think the first time he ever wrapped up a Christmas present for me, he used almost an entire roll of Sellotape. I'm not quite sure how. But my children have been training him on how to wrap presents, and he's getting there definitely. And I know wrapping isn't everyone's thing. But it's a really lovely thing to get into to, put on some Christmas music, you know, have a lovely Christmassy drink, maybe a mince pie, and spend some time wrapping gifts. Mr. K likes to write cryptic clues on gift labels, and I love nothing more than the kind of treasure hunt I mentioned before that leads step by step-by-step to hidden present. My friend Michelle Mackintosh, who's a book designer, has like me had a long love affair with Japan, and all things Japanese paper and stationery. And she's written a wonderful book called Sustainable Gifting. It's absolutely gorgeous to look at and it's jam-packed with ideas for bringing your presents to life in interesting personal ways, often using very, very simple cheap materials likes everyday stationery that you have around your house, and for creating gifts as well by hand. Lots of lovely ideas in there for handmade and homemade presents. One of my favourite projects in the book is a covered notebook which you know, no surprise, love a notebook, and Michelle shows how to use linen or another heavy fabric to cover the book and then buttons, ribbons, or twine to embellish it so that's something you might like to try. She also has a really simple, gorgeous project for making homemade bath salts, which I think is just such a wonderful gift for someone who's had a tiring year which is most people, to be fair, this year. And especially if you could do something like use dried lavender from your own garden to make it that much more personal. In the book Michelle says, "A hot bath is a wonderful escape from the stresses of daily life. Magnesium sulphate, more commonly known as Epsom salts, can help soothe sore muscles and ease the tension of the day away. Perfect for anyone you think could use a break." And so here's a very simple recipe, you'll need 130 grams of Epsom salts, 40 grams of pink sea salt, 10 grams of food safe dried rosebuds or rose petals, which you can get from specialty tea shops, or dried lavender if you'd rather use that, and then 16 grams of green looseleaf tea like genmaicha, which I absolutely love, so maybe get a little bit more then you can drink some, and use some in the bottles that you're making. And then it's ever so simple. In a bowl, combine the Epsom salts and the pink sea salt, divide the mixture into two and then add the rosebuds or petals to one half and mix that and then the tea to the other and mix that and then you've got two different kinds of lovely bottles, which you can package to your liking. Michelle recommends stamping Calico drawstring bags, that's a lovely way to gift them. Or you might want to put them in a little pot. Totally up to you, of course. And you can replace the rose buds or the green tea with other additions like a couple of drops of peppermint essential oil for reinvigoration or skin beautifying ingredients like powdered milk, honey, or almond oil. So simple, but so lovely. When I was preparing for this episode, I was thinking back to my childhood, and I've loved Christmas all my life, which is very much to the credit of my parents who always made it really, really special. And I think only now really, I realise how much love and care went into making them special. And I came across this wonderful poem by Hollie McNish, which shows how having her own child opened her eyes to her mother's efforts when she had been young. And I warn you there is a swear word coming up. This is in Hollie's just amazing, award-winning book called Nobody Told Me, and this poem is called Behind The Scenes. I dont remember the time you spent wrapping crinkled paper up with ribbons helter skelter spirals from that shiny thin party string curled around the scissors edge Sellotape and name tags piled upon your bed till three a.m. I dont remember that I remember the tree stacked and unwrapping sparkly gifts on Christmas Day I dont remember the time you sat and stared into space placing piles of cards and envelopes up in strange midnight towers hand stuck for hours in a pen hold teeth gritted scribbling the neighbours names and holiday message from all of us the taste of the envelope stuck to your tongue I dont remember that I remember the deliveries done running to post them through letterboxes in the cold and glowing excitedly opening all the Christmas cards we got I dont remember the kitchen being hot or the panic that the taste would not be good enough or the hours you spent cutting up the veg, alone, flicking frantically through recipes as we sat lazy lounge throne chiefs watching shit TV as you poured more cups of tea and prepared us snacks I dont remember that I remember being called when everything was ready The smell of gravy poured on creamy mash and disgusting turnip hash with delicious apple sauce more custard drowning out a crumble I dont remember being made. My childhood life - a stage with you behind the scenes Now Im down there in the rigging its not as easy as it seemed. Just love that poem. So assuming we all want to make things special, but have less stress and waste - because who wouldn't? - here are some tips from my Calm Christmas book for saving money and reducing waste when wrapping. So the number one one is to simply give fewer presents really, it's the easiest way to minimise stress and waste. Then for those you do buy, you can ask for them to be shipped with as little packaging as possible and get multiple items shipped together. Also bearing in mind everything going on this year might want to be ordering things a bit earlier than usual to make sure you get them in time. You can reuse paper from last year and keep paper from this year to us next year. Avoid sparkly or coated wrapping paper because it can't be recycled. Most glitter contains microplastics. It's great to see more and more places offering recycled wrapping paper and I know it's not as sparkly and exciting but it makes a huge difference in what kind of paper you choose. Just imagine how much wrapping paper gets used all around the world every Christmas. You can use fabric and you can tie the corners furoshiki style like they do in Japan. It's really gorgeous because then you can... you know say you took a Christmas tea towel and you use that to wrap up your present then the person can keep the tea towel as well or use it to wrap again with somebody else. Or you can simply fold fabric around a present and tie it with a ribbon instead of paper. One thing I learned from Japanese friends was to wrap on the diagonal. It saves a surprising amount of paper so you might want to have a go at that this year. And then also to fold and tuck in the sides using the weight of the gift. And so if you do that, and say you've got a rectangular present, and you wrap on the diagonal, pop the corner over the top and then you keep folding and tucking in the sides you can end up only needing one tiny piece of sticky tape to close the gift and that of course that's great, but also it means it's a lot easier to reuse the paper because it doesn't get ripped so much when it gets opened. You can repurpose old maps, newspaper, pages for magazines, baskets, tins, those kinds of things. Anything is a possibility for wrapping. I love to use uncoated brown kraft paper as a neutral base. It looks gorgeous with sprigs of greenery, or tied with raffia or festive ribbons. And also personalised with paint, with stamps - love stamps - or photographs. I had a whole load of photographs printed one year and tucked a family photograph inside each present and they looked really lovely to and everyone seemed to enjoy receiving them. You can use beeswax wraps - they can obviously then be washed and repurposed to wrap food, which is brilliant. They're easy to make by coating squares of fabric with melted beeswax, lots of videos on YouTube about how to do that these days. And be creative with your stationery. Recycle old envelopes, shopping bags, collage onto them without Christmas cards, tape or stamps, those kinds of things. So you get the idea. You know, maybe this year, let's try to not make rushing to the shop to buy Christmas paper the first thing we do when we're thinking about wrapping presents, Let's challenge ourselves to see how inventive we can be and come up with other ways to do it. So this week's journal prompts - got a couple of questions for you this week. Four in fact. The first one is "Who are you going to release from a social gifting contract this year?" (Which means who you not going to give a present to that you usually give a present to? Try and think for at least one person. You never know, they might be absolutely delighted that they don't have to buy you a present back.) The second one is what would truly delight somebody who receives a gift from you this year, this Christmas? Think of one person and think about how you could make their present mindful, meaningful and memorable. And then the third question is, what about you? What do you really want for Christmas this year? And then lastly, what are you grateful for in your life right now, after the year that you've had? I want you to try and list at least 10 things. If you've got time, go to 20. It's really easy to short gratitude list, but the longer you make the gratitude list, the more you get into the detail of what you really appreciate in your life. So it's really great to go for a longer list. Feel free to come and share your thoughts with me over on Instagram @BethKempton. I'm going to be asking these questions over there this week too. And now it's time for our Nature Corner. Earlier in the series I mentioned that there are 72 microseasons in Japan, each of which lasts five to six days, and they track the subtle shifts in nature and in the weather. This week, we will move into the micro season of North Wind Rattles the Leaves, which is often a time of freezing rain in Japan. Darkness really seems to settle in around this time, so for me, this is a time that I tend to go in search of light. Candlelight inside the house, and sometimes unexpected winter sunlight outside or moonlight, and of course the box holding all the strings of fairy lights that is tucked away at the back of the attic. So I thought that it would be a good time to bring in a creative exercise connected to light, and I found a gorgeous one in the new book, Little Stories of Your Life by Laura Pashby who you may know from Instagram, from the account@circleofpines. Her Instagram is just as beautiful as her book. She's a photographer and a writer with an incredible eye for detail, and this is what she says about little stories of our lives. The little stories of our lives tell of simple moments when the everyday is transformed into something remarkable. The magic of sunlight dancing across a bedroom wall after days of relentless grey; swirling frost patterns etched onto a kitchen window on a cold morning; or an envelope dropping unexpectedly onto the doormat, the address written in a familiar, beloved hand. Little stories are small, but they shine bright: like fireflies, or sparkling water droplets on a winter branch. They concern the people that we love, the details that we observe, the small secrets that we keep and the memories that make us glow inwardly. Little stories encapsulate the reasons we get out of bed in the morning: they describe the tiny pleasures and commonplace rituals that see us through every day. These are stories of moments that we share, moments that we quietly treasure and that somehow make us who we are. If we dont see the value of tiny moments, we will miss the little stories. If we fail to notice them, they will fly, unobserved, into the ether, but if we learn to pay attention, we can gather them up and keep them close. We can catch them as they drift by in the sleepy afternoon air. We can sense them (like voices echoing quietly just beyond the path) and we can follow their whisper. There is always a little story around the corner of the day. We meet them on the back seat of the bus, we come across them as we fold ourselves into a favourite chair in a quiet caf corner, or we find them tucked gently into the pages of a well-loved book. Little stories surprise us, on snowy mornings or rainy afternoons. We discover them when we find something forgotten in a pocket, open the curtains on a sunny morning, or we unearth them hidden at the back of a drawer. Capturing and recording the little stories of our lives involves consciously slowing down. It means stopping to notice ordinary moments and familiar details. Telling the little stories of our lives is about cherishing what truly matters to us, making memories; capturing life creatively, and finding out what makes us who we are." Well, I couldn't agree more. In fact, I'm giving away a signed copy of Little Stories of Your Life on Instagram this week along with a signed copy of my own book Calm Christmas. So do come and enter @BethKempton on Instagram. And here is our creative challenge taken from that beautiful book by Laura and it's called A Diary of Light. For this task, Id like you to keep a photographic diary of light a light collection, if you will. Over the next week, try to observe and photograph as many different types of light as you can. Try to capture an image of bright sunlight , the soft light of cloud cover, the sparkling light of the golden hour (the hour before sunset or after sunrise). Observe how the light travels across the walls of your house, and photograph its patterns. Look for soft dappled sunlight in the shade of a tree and the full force of the midday sun. Notice how light bounces off walls, drops down from doorways and diffuses through glass. Collect as many different examples of light as you can. At the end of the week, look through your images and consider how they make you feel. What stories does the light tell? Have you discovered light spots or types of light that you particularly love? How could you make use of these as you tell your little stories? You may find that like me your search for the light will become an ongoing one and your light collection will continue to grow. I know that love for the light will forever be a part of who I am and how I see. Wonderful. Laura and I would love to see your diary of light. If you share any of your own pictures on Instagram do tag us@BethKempton, and @circleofpines so we can see what the light looks like where you are at this time of year. And now it's time for this week's Christmas recipe. I've got a very special one for you today. It's from the gorgeous book Advent by Laura Fleiter and Kerstin Niehoff. It's a winter edition of the breakfast bowl with creamy oats, cinnamon and spiced cookie crumbs. Just the thing on a cold winter's day when you need slow release energy to keep you going. This recipe serves one and you're going to need two bananas, one apple, half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon, two tablespoons of milk, one tablespoon of quick cooking oats, two teaspoons of almond butter, three pitted dates, two spiced speculoos biscuits (like Lotus biscuits) and one teaspoon of dried cranberries. It's very simple to make - you want to peel and slice one banana and then transfer that to the freezer to chill for at least eight hours. You might want to do that in the night before. And then you halve the apple and remove the core. Peel the second banana. And then blend the frozen banana slices with the fresh banana, one half of the apple, cinnamon milk, oats, almond butter and dates. And put all that mixture into a serving bowl. Thinly slice the other apple to go on top, crush the cookies with a rolling pin and sprinkle them on top. And then garnish your lovely blended mixture with the cranberries too. What a way to start a winter's day. And then we are coming on to our well being tips for this week. And this one might be a little bit unexpected. But I really encourage you this week to think about budgeting as self-care. It really is because it helps you to avoid the stress of overspending, or the credit card hangover in January that nobody really wants. There is actually a great exercise in my book Calm Christmas which helps you figure out your Christmas spending, so if you if you want to go into detail on that then do take a look. But basically the most important thing is to remember that anything you spend on Christmas is money that you then won't have leftover to spend on other things that really matter to you. Really important and I don't think we think about this very much. So if there's something that you really want to bring to life, in the coming year - there's a particular trip that you really want to go on to a place that's very special to you, or there's something that you really want to learn to move your career forward or to change career or to finally get your business going, that kind of thing - every penny that you're spending on Christmas is a penny that you cannot invest in those kinds of dreams. And if you know that and buy it anyway, of course, that's fine. But we often don't stop to think about that, the opportunity cost of what we're spending on Christmas. So, as your wellbeing self-care tip for this week, why not just spend a little bit of time thinking about that? So plan, whether to give, and if you're going to give to somebody what to give, and how to give, how to economise without feeling miserly. You know teaming up with other parents, if you have children to buy shared gifts for teachers, instead of everyone buying one, Secret Santa, those kinds of things, agreeing with friends on a low cost, but thoughtful present among you - perhaps you'll only buy books this year, or only make something handmade - there were so many things that we can do to economise without taking away the joy. If some of your gifts and wrapping materials do need to be bought, it might be worth having a look at the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales which are on or about to come on. They can be amazing opportunities to get good deals. Of course, it's only a good deal if you are going to buy it anyway, so if you can approach those cells with a list of what you need, you are less likely to buy stuff you don't actually want, and you might end up saving yourself some money. Good tip for this week! Okay, and then finally, for this week's get ahead tips, because preparation can make all the difference. Just a few tips this week. You might want to think about the bits and pieces you might need to make things work over Christmas - things like spare batteries, wide silver foil is going to be roasting a turkey for lots of people, crockery, corkscrews, cutlery, enough chairs for your guests, anything that you can't borrow, those sales that I just talked about that are on in lots of shops at this time of year, it's a great time to buy those things that you really know that you're going to need. If you're going to be making your own Christmas crackers, now is a great time to order cracker snaps because they often sell out. And of course to start saving toilet rolls to go inside those Christmas crackers. It's also a really good time to do a regular check of things that might need attention - checking your smoke alarms, checking the oil and antifreeze levels in your car, checking your medicine cabinet, all those kinds of things, it's good to do at this time of year. And some important dates. So here in the UK, 26th November is the last day for Christmas post from the UK to Cyprus, Eastern Europe, Greece, Iceland, Malta and Turkey. And 29th November is the last day for Christmas post from the UK to Western Europe - so early this year. Don't miss those dates. And then finally from now until early December my own company Do What You Love also joins in with the Cyber Sale, in terms of having our biggest sale of the year. It's on now at dowhatyouloveforlife.com and you can get all of my courses for up to 50% off. That includes the Book Proposal Masterclass - we have generated an unbelievable amount of book deals, people signing up with agents, it's an incredible course if you've got a non-fiction book idea, to bring that book to life and land yourself a book deal, so the Book Proposal Masterclass is in the sale, Reach Teach Profit is in the sale which will teach you how to create and sell an online course, which is an amazing way of building a new income stream for yourself. How to be Happy, Calm, Organised and Focused - it's a great course for sorting your life out basically, and getting super organised. That's in the sale, and of course my writing courses Excavate Your Life and Words Heal - they're in the sale too. They also make amazing gifts so do come and check out the sale at dowhatyouloveforlife.com and start investing in your dreams for next year. And that's all for me this week. I will be back next week with a lovely cosy episode all about nesting, and we're going to focus on simplifying and decorating our homes. You have been listening to the Calm Christmas podcast with me Beth Kempton. Remember to subscribe so you don't miss any upcoming episodes and tell your friends if you think they'd enjoy it too. For more inspiration and access to your very special free Christmas Care Package, cosy up with a copy of my book, Calm

Christmas and a Happy New Year:

A Little Book of Festive Joy, which is available now from all good bookshops. For a peek into my own perfectly imperfect Christmas preparations come and find me on Instagram@BethKempton where I always love to hear from you. Wishing you a wonderful week as you put together your own ideas for a calm Christmas and a Happy New Year.