Starting the week by writing the Happy List is something I’ve been doing for the last few years. It’s my chance to sit down and reflect on the little or big things that made me smile in the previous week, as well as to record some of our family adventures.

Five Happy Things {Week 51/2025}

Last week involved a lot of Christmassy things including going out for a Christmas meal with my workmates. We went to one of my favourite local restaurants, and played Herd Mentality (which I subsequently went out and bought for us to play at home!).

We’ve been watching a lot of festive films, including Home Alone 2 and Die Hard. We’ve also started watching Pluribus on Apple+ which is strange, but good.

Although our house is full of Christmas food we couldn’t resist making the Waitrose & Partners Gingerbread Brownie Kit we featured in our Gingerbread Gift Guide. All the dry ingredients were contained in the bottle and it was really easy to make – and tasted amazing too!

Over the weekend we headed to the light trail at Headstone Manor Museum in Harrow. We visited this museum back in 2021 and have never made it back, until now. We’ve visited a few Christmas light trails but they are all quite far from us. This one was only 20 minutes away and really good. The lights were spread around the gardens of Headstone Manor.

My son will be taking his GCSEs next summer so we booked tickets to watch A Christmas Carol at Ally Pally theatre. This is one of the texts he is studying so it was a great excuse to go to the theatre. The book was adapted by Mark Gatiss and starred Neil Morrissey as Marley and Matthew Cottle as Scrooge.

Here’s to finding the ‘happy’ in the ordinary. Wishing you a week full of small wins and big smiles!