Dec The Halls, And The Tree!

Well we are in full throttle as far as Christmas is concerned, and we LOVE it! We have given ourselves Elf names this year.

The front door and step have been dressed.

Today is Monday and we have been Busy at Bronllan, nothing new there!

On Friday it was Jake's turn for a little bath ready for Christmas. No photos I'm afraid, no spare hands but at least that job is done. Another little task was to order the turkey from the butcher in Tregaron and we can pick that up on Christmas Eve; the fridge freezer in the cellar store room with be switched on soon so it can sit in there - I read the other day that you should collect a fresh turkey as late as possible as butcher fridges are much more effective than domestic appliances. I also did a few of the inserts for the 1-24 garland and the other night we tried to sing the first two lines of Christmas songs or carols backwards!

As I said in my last post I started with the main decorations on Monday and we are now done downstairs. Here are some shots of the kitchen; I spend so much time in here that I love decorating.

This is a little dark but I wanted to make an effort decorating the windows this year.

I love having little things the boys have made dotted about, even if they are a couple of years old, and more paper chains!

This are two of my favourite handmade Christmas decs.

I have one of my little vignettes in the living room again this year and of course the paper chains and honeycomb decs are up, as you can see in the tree photo.(This year I have about eight of them both upstairs in the boys' rooms and downstairs.

In the evening it was the switching on of the tree lights in Bont. The tree is outside the community hall and the children from the boys' school are always invited to sing a few songs, there is a competition for Christmas craft projects and there are stalls, mince pies and hot drinks; here you get the idea.

Saturday was a bit of a mad day. In the morning I made bread and when Jon got back from an errand I popped across the road to look at our Winter fayre. I won some chocolates on one of the stalls! Whilst there Jon and the boys were outside finishing the fencing they started last weekend. After I fed the boys their lunch I took Alfie to his Stage School session, did the food shopping then picked him up later. When I got home a friend of Jon's was in the kitchen and there was great merriment as he had brought a leg of Serrano ham and the boys were dying for it to be cut; they loved it when we were in Menorca on holiday.

We settled down in the evening to watch Strictly which is VERY exciting at the moment!

On Sunday morning Jon fetched the tree from the Christmas tree farm a couple of miles up the road from us. I have to say a 6ft Nordman Fir for £30 is a flippin' good deal. After a bit of tidying up I set to baking the first two dozen mince pies including a few with a surprise pecan nut in; as I look at the plate now, however, there are just six left - now you understand why I make dozens of them in December. I will make two dozen tomorrow and one lot will go in the freezer!

I mentioned about using a lovely jar I found in a charity shop for slices of lemon and lime with cherries for drinks. Well on Sunday I sliced up the fruit and put it in the jar with the cherries and cooled sugar syrup. This is how the jar now looks and I think it looks great!

And so to this morning. After breakfast I brought the tree decorations up from the cellar and set to. I have to say I like to decorate the tree on my own; this is due to a slight case of OCD with me wanting everything just right. Here is the tree before the decorations....

and here we are when finished.

I particularly like the top of the tree;I don't have an angel or a traditional star but prefer something nice and simple.

It took me about three and a half hours from start to finish, including nipping off an unruly branch at the bottom to use as a decoration and tidying up afterwards. I have a box with the decorations the boys have made over the years (so pleased I put the date of lots of them) so they will be added later this evening.

Ok, that was a long post but I can't do one every day and there is a lot going on so this is my way.

Hope you enjoyed my ramblings, I'm sure there will be more in a few days.

By for now.

Lou.xx