We were very excited today to be invited to help the big man himself spreading cheer and giving out gifts to children and young people visiting the Rose Road Christmas Fair. We welcomed Barbara for their first task. Great to meet you Barbara - we can't promise we'll have such great outfits next time we see you! Derek was our lead money maker manning the grotto entrance while the rest of us were on greeting and present passing duties. It was lovely to see everyone having such a great time. Lucy was also tasked with keeping Santa jolly with cake and coffee. Next year we know we've got to get him the cake quicker! We all managed to have a wander round the stalls too and got quite lucky on the bottle tombola, but no luck on the raffle!

We set off on a very windy and slightly damp evening in search of Christmas light displays to warm our souls. Unfortunately we might have been a little bit too early for our annual Christmas light walk as not many of the houses seemed to have their displays up yet. We completed our litter pick on the way back and didn’t even find too much litter either. We were joined by special guest, Blue, who made sure we did a thorough job searching out as much litter as we could!

Such a lovely morning with FoSOC, of which I am now a member lol Great bunch of people, Great bunch of people...my arms are killing me but we moved out a lot of brambles!

I had a great time helping out at the local infant school Christmas Fete - I got to run the cake stall! But really i wanted to join in as so many great games and prizes to be won. I wanted to guess the name and win the mahoosive CapyBara. I helped to pack away after too - shifting boxes and packing away.

Barcode scanning at a rather wet Southampton parkrun today.

We were feeling very festive this evening as we got to help decorate Santa’s grotto. Some of the team counted out presents that Santa has had delivered early (well you know what the post is like come Christmas!). Others started off by assembling one of the Christmas trees which took a lot of fluffing! Abby was in charge of making sure we all kept to the aesthetic which was apparently red and gold. In the final moments though someone decided a purple bauble must also adorn the tree! We can’t wait for all the visitors to see the finished grotto soon. It’s Chrissssssssstmasssss!!