It's exactly one month until Christmas and I'm trying to resist the temptation to marvel at the passage of time. I usually prefer to wait until December before I really go completely bonkers, but there's no harm in laying the groundwork a bit early. The 25th of November is a perfectly respectable date to start planning ahead for some festive cheer.

When it comes to heralding the coming of Christmas, I'm a traditionalist. Don't even talk to me about Starbucks red cups. It's a miracle of modern marketing that drinking an overpriced coffee from a disposable cup sold by a tax-avoiding mega-corporation has somehow come to embody the season for a worryingly large segment of the population.

(Top tip: if you want a wintery hot drink that actually tastes nice, forget the pumpkin spice crap and try the Scots pine and smoked salt hot chocolate that Urban Angel are serving up at the St Andrew Square Scottish market, or have a hot toddy from the Royal Dick instead. Delicioso.)

If it takes more than a Christmas-themed beverage to get you in the mood, here are three things you can plan right now that will have you feeling more festive than a dog in a Santa hat come December, according to this fool-proof formula: doing something fun + helping other people = warm fuzzy Christmas glow.

1. Buy a tree + help the homeless

We've been buying our Christmas tree from Caring Christmas Trees for years and would never buy it from anywhere else. The quality is lovely, you can pick it up at a time that suits you, and the profits go to a wonderful cause.

The trees aren't cheap, but guess what? CHRISTMAS TREES ARE EXPENSIVE. One year, we thought it would be cheaper to buy our tree from one of the slightly dodgy-looking roadside sellers, which sold trees by the foot. It ended up costing exactly the same, the quality was rubbish, and the money went straight into someone's pocket instead of going towards helping Edinburgh's homeless. Where's the Christmas cheer in that?

If you live in Aberdeen, Dumfries, Dundee, Perth, Edinburgh, East Lothian, Fife, Glasgow or South East London, I can't recommend Caring Christmas Trees enough. We've volunteered as tree distributors with them for several years, so here's a little inside info: most of the trees are a good 6-10 inches taller than they say they will be. If you're torn between two sizes, go for the smaller one. You'll get extra height for your buck (except with the 4 foot trees, but what they lack in height they make up for in girth, being practically spherical). You have to order in advance, so buy your tree now.

2. Learn a new skill + support independent businesses

Those of you on the East coast can join in the fun with Pyrus, run by creative geniuses Fiona and Natalya. They have classes on various dates in December, held in gorgeous venues in Edinburgh and East Lothian, where you can learn to make wreaths and garlands and even go out and pick your own foliage. Full details and booking information here.

3. Sing carols + help people with breast cancer

I love carols. Love love love them. The one sad thing about getting married in July was that we couldn't have 'Hark! The Herald Angels Sing' and 'O Come All Ye Faithful' as our wedding hymns. Apparently it's a bit weird to want Christmas carols at your summer wedding. Whatevs.

To compensate for this tragedy I try to sing carols at every possible opportunity, so obviously I had to buy tickets for Carols by Candlelight at St John's Cathedral in support of Breast Cancer Care. If there's one thing I love nearly as much as carols, it's candles, and if there's one thing I love more than either of those things, it's supporting people affected by breast cancer. Done deal.

Londoners, fret not - there's a carol concert for you, too. Breast Cancer Care are also holding a carol concert at St Paul's Cathedral, and they've only gone and got Simon bloody Callow to do a reading. I'm totally not jealous, though. Not even a little bit.


So, there you go. Three easy ways to get into the Christmas spirit. I'm interested, what is it that triggers that festive feeling for you?  The John Lewis Christmas advert? Your first glass of mulled wine? The compulsory appearance of sparkly dresses in every shop window? Please don't say the red cups.

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Image: Ling Design charity Christmas cards, £2.99 for 6 from John Lewis (bonus points if you noticed the Christmas tree, the wreath, the carol singers and the dog in a Santa hat).

After audience testing revealed an overwhelmingly negative response to 2013's working title, 2013: Worst Year Ever, I've decided to rename it 2013: The Year of Netflix. Because when I haven't been whining about how it's been the worst year ever, I've been watching a scandalous amount of television to make my mind off how it's been the worst year ever. As you can see, it's been working really well.

After nearly a year of practising this questionable avoidance technique, I now consider myself something of an expert in consuming mindless, repetitive hours of American TV. If you'd like to become an expert too, here's how.

1. Get hooked up

2. Become an American

3. Watch all the things

If you know anything about Edinburgh, you know it has literature in its soul. What you may not know is that it also has literature in its masonry.

Here are three places in Edinburgh where words have leapt off the page and into the world, listed in ascending order of obscurity.

1. Canongate Wall

2. Makars' Court

3. A random office building

This is a city of shifting light, of changing skies, of sudden vistas. A city so beautiful it breaks the heart again and again.

SEE ALSO:

1. You cannot read everything. Stop trying.

There's probably more to design than just covering stuff with glitter, but it definitely helps.

First off, let me say how overwhelmed I was (and still am) by your response to the blog's new look. Seriously, I can't thank you all enough for your enthusiastic support and kind words. I've been walking around with a smile on my face like a weirdo for two days. You guys are ace.

A few of you have asked about the glittery textures and more general how-tos, so here's a brief rundown on how to spruce up your blog, Kirsty-style. I am by no means an expert, so remember: Google is your friend.

1. Judge a book by its cover

Nothing irritates me more than wedding photographers with ugly websites. If I'm hiring someone to do something artistic and creative, there's no way I'm going to hire someone who doesn't know or can't tell (not sure which is worse) that their site looks gross.

The same principle applies to web design. To me, designing a blog or website is a fundamentally creative endeavour. Of course it's not all about aesthetics - function is kind of important - but why would I take advice on design from a book that is badly-designed? No thanks.


Enter HTML & CSS, the prettiest book about web design you ever did see. This book is beautifully laid out, crystal clear and just plain helpful. It's a comprehensive, up-to-date guide that makes sense even to people who know literally nothing about HTML or CSS (like, well, me). There's also a stylish website packed with extra code and tools that is referenced throughout the book.

Maybe I'm just a sucker for a nice font and pretty pictures, but I loved it so much that I made my friend who is a librarian at a college buy multiple copies for her library. It's that helpful.

2. Invest in the basics

However, a book will only get you so far. Blogger comes with a set of uninspiring templates that can be customised, but unless you really know your way around them it's easy to go wrong. Wordpress seems to have a greater variety, but the more blogs you visit, the more you start to notice a certain sameness to the free templates. I wanted something custom, without the custom price tag. I had an idea in my head of the kind of layout I liked but no idea how to make it happen.


So I decided to bite the bullet and purchase a template. There are lots of free templates out there, but they're mostly ugly or over-complicated. When I found the Blog Milk shop, I decided good design was worth spending on (it didn't hurt that she had a flash sale for Alt Summit). There are also some lovely templates to be found on Etsy, like these ones by La Designerie.

Buying a decent template is like buying a decent bra. You've got to have a sturdy foundation before you start piling on the bling. Once I had the template installed, I could tweak and embellish it to my heart's content (for comparison, here's the unmodified demo of the template I'm using).

The good news, if any of you are thinking about embarking on a redesign, is that Blog Milk is currently giving away 19 blog themes (one of each design for Wordpress and Blogger). The giveaway is open until 28 February (that's tomorrow, in case like me you're still reeling from the fact it's nearly March) so if you're interested, get on it!

3. The internet is your oyster. Eat it.

So there you have it. Three ways to jazz up your blog: a book, a template, and internet goodies. If you have any specific questions about anything, feel free to ask them in the comments, and thank you again for being so lovely. Really, the best way to jazz up your blog is to have awesome readers, and I've got 'em.


Images: 1 and 4. Pugly Pixel 2. HTML&CSS 3. Rose template by Blog Milk, Me & You template by La Designerie