My favorite season - the festive season.

My name is Ciska and I am addicted to x-mas decorations.

I live if South Africa, and our Christmas time, is summer break, long hot summer days, swimming, watermelons and cold meat and salads.

This does not stop us from enjoying the festive season, we are just as excited as everybody else in the world.

The magic of Christmas time creeps up on us around the end of October. First you don't notice the decorations in the shops, but on one of our hot summer days it hits you over the head. It's the end of the year.

Boney-M is playing over the sound systems in all the malls and you relies you will have to start thinking about the gifts, menus and holiday plans.

Every year when I open the first box of ornaments I get the same feeling that I had as a kid, this excitement and the promise of a magical time.
I am a mom so I need to share the tree with the boys, I want them to feel the same way about this holiday as I do, but it is so hard not to go and move some of the ornaments around to where I would have liked to place them, later when they are asleep.
But I am also a softy and all the handmade x-mas decorations the boys ever made are still part of my collection, and I will always keep them. My family knows about my love for these decorations, so I also have a nice collection from all over the world. Remembering the people that gave them to me when I am putting them on my tree makes the tradition even more precious. Then we decorate the rest of the house, inside and out.

I have to confess I have a plastic tree, not a real one, living in a city makes it a bit difficult to find real tree, and in our country pine trees are an invading species. We don't have a lot of water in South Africa so a plastic tree makes more sense.

My tree will probably fall over one of these days, I don't have any space left on the branches, and I have already hid a few new decorations around the house this year and I can't wait to add them to my tree.

I think it is one of those times that I can throw myself into the magic for a few weeks and over indulge my addiction, enjoy the high this brings. I can then survive for the next 11 months until I can start all over again.

The tree is only allowed to go up on the 1st of December each year and it have to go down on the 1st of January. I do this to keep the holiday and this festive season special. I don't want the boys or me to lose this magical feeling. I hope that they will start a similar tradition in their own homes one day.

I start my yearly Christmas Pinterest board in January. I just can't help myself. And I buy a lot of decorations on sale after Christmas. I can't walk past any decorations without stopping and having a look to see if there is something new that I don't have yet.

I do dream of waking up to a white Christmas morning one day, somewhere in Europe maybe.

But a hot summer's day for Christmas, at the beach or on a farm with family is the South African way.

Hope you all of you feel the same about my favorite season.