Emily Gravenstede is 11 years old and has lived with PAH since she was three. She looks forward to Christmas all year, and here she explains why.

Christmas is my favourite time of the year. I love everything about it, but here are my top five favourite things about it:

Music: When I hear Christmas songs it makes me think of Christmas and I feel excited and happy and I cannot wait for Christmas to come.  I like all Christmas songs, from pop songs to carols.  I love playing Christmas carols with our school band and playing Christmas carols on my violin at home. 

Films: Christmas films are always so festive and jolly.  Some of my favourites are Elf, The Grinch, Arthur Christmas and the Nativity films.  I can watch these over and over again and I don’t get bored of them.  My Dad won’t let me watch them until it’s December though.

Decorations: I always enjoy decorating the house for Christmas. We decorate the Christmas tree, make paper chains (that end up really long!), and we place fairy lights and other different decorations around the house. We make a Christmas wreath out of berries and different types of foliage and hang it out on the front door. Sometimes we even make a second wreath which we make out of small, brightly wrapped chocolates which we hang up inside.  It looks really cool (and tastes great too!) 

Baking:  All-year-round baking is fun, but the things we bake at Christmas are always the most exciting and help to build up the anticipation for the big day itself.  I make things like brownies dusted with icing sugar, a Christmas cake, biscuits in festive shapes, a yule log, different types of sweets (which are always my favourite!) and mince pies.

Scroll down for Emily’s favourite Chrsitmas biscuit recipe!

Christmas Day:  I love waking up on Christmas morning and I always wake up REALLY early.  I wake my sister up and we run downstairs as fast as we can.  When we get to the sitting room it is full of presents and our stockings are full of gifts from Santa.  Mum and Dad get up and we all open presents.  One of the things I love the most is seeing all my family (grandparents, aunties, uncles and cousins) and eating Christmas dinner together and then opening even more presents.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!