Festive Coffee, Christmas Markets and Star Wars

When you have kids, making time for your partner can often be difficult, especially in the run up to Christmas. At the end of the day, we are often too busy completing chores, or too exhausted after a busy day at work, to spend any time together as a couple – we needed a day off! To mark the final year countdown to our wedding (we’ve been engaged for a while), we both decided to head into Edinburgh and enjoy ourselves at the Christmas markets, while the kids were at school and nursery.

 

Despite living reasonably close to Edinburgh, I’m a Glasgow Girl. I am in Glasgow every day for work and also do most of my shopping and socialising there too. If asked where to eat and drink, I would have plenty of suggestions – this is not the case for Edinburgh. We spent the first hour of our day trailing up and down hills, through deserted side streets looking for a ‘quaint’ coffee shop for our breakfast. I would love any suggestions from locals for our next visit :)

After conceding defeat, we settled down for a hot chocolate and salted caramel cappuccino in the more familiar surroundings of Costa. In the end, we were pleased we ended up here as the food was fantastic. If you visit Costa in the near future, you must try the white chocolate finger from their cake selection – it's absolutely delicious! Paul really enjoyed his festive coffee, even though he was reluctant to spoil the chocolate snowflake on the top! After a spot of people watching and some (long overdue) normal conversation, it was time for the Christmas markets.

 

Each year, at Christmas, the Princes Street Gardens are occupied by the traditional market stalls providing you with festive cheer for the season – this year was no exception. A selection of trinkets, food and other items are on sale, providing a huge variety of gift ideas to suit anyone. There is also an ice rink, a Ferris wheel and a small amusement area with a Santa train and Christmas tree maze (I love mazes!) – activities we wish we’d brought the kids along for.

 

Paul's favourite was the marzipan stall. I treated him to a selection of flavoured marzipan pieces from Kings Marzipan. He only chose four pieces, however, as they were all a little pricy: bubblegum, whisky, pistachio and cherry and poppy seed. I also bought a new Christmas tree decoration to include as part of future Christmas traditions. Each year, I want to buy a new tree decoration as a way of celebrating our wedding anniversary. This then becomes a treasured keepsake and avoids us wasting a huge amount of money on ourselves celebrating our anniversary so close to Christmas. The ornament we chose for this year (our minus 1 year anniversary!) was a small, red wooden sleigh from a toy stall for £2.50. I love wooden decorations, especially this one, as it reminds me of my Mum's wooden decorations that she has had since I was little.
 

 Given that it is difficult to spend a whole day at the Christmas markets (especially when I realised I was spending too much time trying to get the perfect pictures for this post), we also decided to go and see Star Wars: The Force Awakens. For some of you, this is what you’ve most been looking forward to in the run up to Christmas 2015. Paul treated us to nibbles, and even a fruit cider for me (I'd never had alcohol in the cinema before), and we sat down to enjoy the film.

 

I'm not going to discuss anything about the film here, other than to say that I really enjoyed it and Paul thought it was... ok. If you are interested, make the time to see it yourself, especially if you are a fan. I only wish my Dad could be back in the country so I could take him to see it too. He was the first the introduce me to the magic of Star Wars, back when I was eight, so seeing this without him made me realise how much he is missed while he lives overseas.

 

All in all, this was definitely a great 'date day'! While we intended to spend most of the day enjoying all things Christmas, we actually had more fun when we included Star Wars in the mix. In the end, it didn't matter what we did, the important part was that we were there together! Children are fantastic, but everyone needs a break occasionally in order to remember what makes them great as a couple. I'm looking forward to next year's celebration, which will not only include our kids, but all the other guests for our wedding too!
 

Follow my blog with Bloglovin