Welcome to Day
Twenty-Five of Blogmas 2022
As if this is it – Blogmas is over! To mark the end of one of my absolute most favourite and most popular blog post series’ I’ve ever created, I put together this post full of links to the different forms of posts, little explanations of them, the lessons I’ve learnt from creating and publishing Blogmas 2022, and there’s even a little behind-the-scenes reel! Enjoy, and Merry Christmas!
The Gift Guides
In Day One (which you can read here),
I talked a lot about my decision to include Gift Guides in Blogmas this year. I
think I felt so obligated to explain why I opted to do this because it’d be
fair to say that Gift Guides are not something you’d expect to see on a mental
health blog. So, my worry is that someone will come to my blog, see a Gift
Guide, and search for more general and easily relatable mental health content
elsewhere. And so, I tried to explain
how important it is for me to enjoy what I do with I’m NOT Disordered and that
the fact I really love putting this sort of content together motivates me to
publish it regardless of the fact that it might reduce readers.
The Christmas Markets
Before this year, I’d only ever attended smaller Christmas Markets
in my hometown and two local ones; but I had a ‘bigger-and-better’ motto for
this Christmas and especially for Blogmas 2022… And so, I actually went to FOUR
Christmas Markets (the one that didn’t make it into the blog because I only
went there a few days ago; was Newcastle)! I’ve really enjoyed how different
each Market has been because I really wasn’t expecting that; I mean, a lot of
people voiced the thought that “once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all!”
But that really wasn’t true – or at least it wasn’t true for the ones I chose
to visit! Linden Hall was more organised, quiet, and wholesome. Whitley Bay was
busier and had better stalls. York was the most horrendously busy one and had just
one or two good businesses selling there. Newcastle was a good balance between
quiet and busy in terms of the crowds and there was a larger focus on their food
and drink stalls. So, it was nice for me to be able to figure out which kind
was my favourite so that I know what I’m looking for in a Christmas Market to
choose the ones I visit in 2023 (yes, I’m already thinking about Christmas next
year!).
The Wish Lists
These were another type of Blogmas post which I was fairly
confident wouldn’t attract many more readers because they were so far away from
the kind of typical content you would expect from a mental health blog. But,
similarly to the Gift Guides, I decided to prioritise how much I enjoyed creating
them. However, as with many things in blogging and in life, something went
wrong with these – something which you likely won’t have known or noticed… When
I first created these Wish Lists a few weeks ago, they had been for myself, my
bunny Luna, and my cat, Emmy. Unfortunately, Emmy was put to sleep recently and
so I had to edit all these posts to remove her part and boy, did I cry?! It was
hard because I didn’t want to seem as though I could just easily forget her and
remove her from my life. It wasn’t that way at all. So, I’d kind of like to dedicate
the following posts to Emmy.
Bits & Bobs
Not a whole lot to say about this bit, I guess. I mean, I had to pad
some of the routine and patterned/repeated content out with a few
collaborations and some random festive content! I enjoyed doing the ‘Wardrobe’
pieces similarly to the Gift Guides and Wish Lists because it was kind of
irrelevant content for a mental health blog, but I found creating them really
fun and I just hope that my enjoyment with these, can kind of show through the
actual posts for others to find them good to see too.
BLOGMAS
2022 | DAY ONE | I'm NOT Disordered (imnotdisordered.co.uk)
BLOGMAS
2022 | DAY FOUR: MY CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS | I'm NOT Disordered
(imnotdisordered.co.uk)
The ‘Christmas With…’ Q&A’s
Unsurprisingly, these were the most popular type of Blogmas 2022
posts! I say ‘unsuprisingly’ because I’ve previously featured some ’24 hours
with…’ posts of a similar nature – Q&A’s and have found them to be hugely
successful during the average days let alone it now being Christmastime! And I
think the appeal and popularity of this nature of content comes from the
blatant fact that most people are curious; especially about the lives of those
who they might not usually come into contact with e.g. actors
and musicians
etc. And I harnessed that curiosity to create content that was appealing in
that way. I actually also really enjoyed reading the variety of everyone’s
answers and so I was hopeful that they would be popular. Throughout Blogmas, I’ve
been asked or have informed those below where abouts in the popularity list
their Q&A is, but I decided not to do that on here for everyone to see in
case it hurt a few egos and left people disappointed and reluctant to ever join
in again.
BLOGMAS
2022 | DAY THREE: CHRISTMAS WITH... BLOGGER; MARTIN BAKER | I'm NOT Disordered
(imnotdisordered.co.uk)
BLOGMAS
2022 | DAY NINETEEN: CHRISTMAS WITH... A CARER | I'm NOT Disordered
(imnotdisordered.co.uk)
BLOGMAS
2022 | DAY TWENTY-FOUR: CHRISTMAS WITH… ME! | I'm NOT Disordered
(imnotdisordered.co.uk)
Behind-The-Scenes
Over December
I’ve taken a lot of little videos and photos that actually haven’t made it onto
my social media. So, here’s a little BTS of Blogmas 2022:
Lessons Learnt From Blogmas 2022
ü
I was right to start planning and creating Blogmas 2022 in the
Summer because it’s meant having time to really enjoy all the activities and commitments
I’ve had in December!
ü
Consider doing something about Advent Calendars if there’s another
Blogmas or even just Christmassy content in 2023
ü
Be more prepared for anxiety, stress, crowds, and everything else
that I hadn’t thought the gravity of when attending the large Christmas Markets
that I did
ü
I need to harness the popularity that the ‘Christmas with…’
Q&A’s attracted and utilise it in more day-to-day content or in other collaborations
A Few Thank You’s
Firstly, a special thank you to my Mum who brainstormed the entirety
of this year’s Blogmas, and to Martin Baker who helped me to choose between
possible logo drafts. Then, a huge thanks to absolutely every person and organisation
who have contributed to Blogmas 2022 in whatever way possible. Your time and
efforts are so appreciated and I’m truly honoured to have been trusted with such
important and incredibly one-off collaborations and opportunities. And, to the
whole Canva team for their help and services in creating literally all the images
and graphics used in this series.
Finally, thank you to you! Without I’m NOT Disordered’s readers,
we’d be nowhere. And trust me, I really really really appreciate you spending
your time reading my blog – it’s an honour to be going into the New Year on 1.1
million readers, and I wish you
all a very Merry Christmas!
