It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!

 

Hello all.

I'm in red type mode because here at Bronllan we're in full Christmas mode and there will be no apologies. I'd just like to say I hope you're all still keeping safe still social distancing and wearing your masks. The news of the vaccine is fantastic and a real positive thing but it is not going to solve things over night so we need to persevere and keep going a bit longer. Christmas and all that comes with it will be very different this year but I hope your are able to still do your shopping, maybe supporting some local businesses, and see your nearest and deastes somehow, in person or by the power of zoom.

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So, I thought I'd share how things are shaping up for Christmas on our little homestead.

This year I wanted to make my front door wreath out of totally natural elements so I headed off to meet Jon at the sawmill on my way back from Aber at the end of November to collect some fresh moss and left it to dry in the cellar for a few days.

We normally put up the tree over the first weekend of Decemeber but due to the way the weekend fell this year we were up and decorated on November 28th! That day I managed to get quite a lot done, with lots of cheery Christmas music on in the background, obvs!

After the tree I began with the other decorations which I like to have around the house; this is how my kitchen table looks at this time of the year! I have lots of tags, chains and hanging decorations I've made over the year and love using these along with new ones I make.

I began with the wooden box which was made for us, the actual box, by Jon's very creative cousin. It now sits on the kitchen side table which I can see from my reguralr spot at the table.

I sooo love my baking bench at this time of the year with lights and homemade chains of vintage paper. I whipped up a couple of batches of pastry for the fridge ready for mince pie making; I always use Mary Berry's recipe with orange zext and icing sugar and it never fails.

A couple of days later this is now the hall way looked. I made this star from some of the ceiling we had to take down in the living room when we arrived at Bronllan five years ago. It was sort of wattle and daub with the thin pieces of wood between the beams; I hope you know what I mean but this is a fabulous memory of our first Christmas and I hope to keep it for a long time.

It is decorated with had made tags, 

the old church shelf underneath it has this mixed media decoration of mine and the wonderful felt gnome made by the wonderful Maryline of Rural and Rustic.

In the kitchen I got down to the first three dozen mince pies. 12 went straight in the freezer, as usual, as that way we will always have a few for emergencies....

This sign I made a couple of Christmases ago but thought for this year it needed a bit of a make over. My very creative youngest added the decorations on the lower part and Jon did some new outlining. I love it!

In this photo the sign is leaning against our beautiful vintage sideboard which turns into our lovely drinks bar over the festive season. You may be able to see my bottle of Advocaat from which I am already enjoying a Snowball here and there, complete of course with a couple of Marachino cherries, would be rude not to!

After a little walk around the garden I brought in some greenery to go along wit the moss and the front door wreath was completed.

Over the next couple of days more decoations went up

and more pies were in the planning, of course.

We're really feeling very festive now. Presents are being wrapped, but not under the tree just yet, and although the family we were hoping to have travel to us for a few days are now not able to, we will enjoy our wonderful family time together. There's still quite a lot to do, such as very important jobs of printing off our A - Z game we play every Christmas Eve, buying presents for playing bingo on Boxing Day and lots of other things on my Christmas Planner which will gradually get crossed off one by one to ensure nothing is forgotten and that we have a joyous time.

I hope your plans are coming along well for however you plan on spending the festive season.

Bye for now,

take care

Lou. xx