I
am usually a little kid when it comes to thinking about Christmas. All the
beautiful sparkling lights, listening to Christmas music and shopping for
presents. Oh it’s just so magical. The one thing that would make my Christmas
perfect, is to spend it in the big apple. If there’s one place in the world
that really makes Christmas feel like Christmas, it’s New York and nothing
would be more magical than spending Christmas in the mad busy city of NYE. Ohh
a girl can dream. But for now, until that happens, it’s time to reflect on my
favourite time of year and list a few of my favourite things.
Following on from the
Christmas Jumper Edit for us gals, I thought it would only be fair to do it for
the misters too. I must admit, sourcing a Christmas Jumper for a bloke is
pretty damn hard, but I have been able to find a variety of jumpers that I hope
would suit everyone. Shout out to my husband for giving me a small hand with
this (and for being the type of person who would probably wear most of these
jumpers!)
“Santa Baby, slip a sable under the tree, for me”
I love Christmas. I love picking special presents for loved ones, spending time carefully wrapping the presents and seeing their reactions when they open them. And I definitely prefer giving presents rather than receiving them. Mainly because I am a little socially awkward when it comes to the gift opening or gift exchange, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t like receiving presents and I don’t have a wish list of my own. Because I do. A pretty big wish list in fact.
The world of social media went crazy when Essena O’Neill decided to “quit” social media after building a crazy number of followers and creating an Instagram page that many girls, - including myself – lusted over. If you haven’t read the story, Essena basically says how she appears happy but her life is controlled by social media and her following that she has now became unhappy. She confesses about how much time was spent into getting that perfect Instagram shot, and also mentioned how she had been paid $400 to feature a photo of a dress on Instagram by companies and advertisers, her aim was to explain the “behind the scenes” of these posts. Companies and advertisers will, of course, pay a lot of money for anyone with a large following to feature their products or brand, because let’s face it they would be stupid not to use a large audience to try and make money. Its called marketing. And it’s clever marketing. But Essena said this eventually made her miserable, and in a 20 minute long video she explained how as a young teen she became obsessed with wanting to build followers on Instagram and social media because she thought it would make her feel more liked.
Another truth, I too would love a large following on the world of social media. Not to get paid lots of money by companies wanting me to advertise their teeth whitening products but because I really love my blog and I’d feel pretty darn good knowing that so many people enjoy my little rambles on the web. I have around 4,000 people follow me over my social media links and you know what, I feel pretty darn good about that. I thoroughly enjoy my blog and I love that people come back to read it. I still get so excited when I receive a notification to say that a new person is following my blog – I really do love it – and I am grateful to every single one of my followers, but why do we all want more?
I would be lying if I said I wouldn’t want more followers, and that’s not me being greedy but it’s just me wanting to get myself known in the world. I know so many amazingly talented bloggers that have been able to quit their jobs and blog full time, and I applaud you. Because not only did that take years of dedication and hard work, but you are brave to quit a job for something you are passionate about and I know that you work bloody hard at what you do. And I’d love that too. I would love to be able to quit my job and work on my blog as a career. I’d love the exciting lifestyle at not knowing what was around the corner and just embrace every opportunity.
And it’s okay that I can’t and it’s also okay if some bloggers don’t even want that type of career. (Hayley from Tea Party Beauty wrote a great post on that here) But that doesn’t stop those that do – myself included – being jealous of all these amazing people who have worked hard and have just been able to do everything that you’ve dreamt of. I have often felt extremely jealous of those girls that I follow (okay, stalk) on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and even Bloglovin’ and wonder whether I too could be like them.
And the answer is yes, anyone can be who you want to be. You just need to stop trying to be someone else (giving advice to myself here) and just do what makes you happy. Eat what you want to eat. Work out if you want to work out. Wear what you want to wear. You don’t have to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on designer things to be a fashion blogger, and you don’t need to have every single beauty product under the sun to be a beauty blogger. You just need to find your niche and be you, write about what you want and don’t write about things you don’t want to. And just be happy with the fact that you are not Chiara Ferragni and you are just not cut out for world domination. Yet.
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| *Image sourced from Pinterest |
Now I know that the usual posts that I have seen around this topic are giving your 16 year old self advice. But I was leaving school then and I didn’t stay on to do my A-Levels and I went straight into college and working. Reflecting on it now, it was a bad choice and I have to live with that. But it makes me think about the reasons I made the choices I did after 16, and when thinking about it, it stemmed from the choices I had started making around 13. So, my advice is to my arrogant, cocky and stupid 13 year old self and the many years after. Here goes.
