And So It Begins!

Yes, the weeks are flying by and with outside jobs dwindling there is lots to do, prepare, get on with indoors and, ultimately, enjoy come the big day. YES, I'm getting ready for the Big Ho HO, already my favourite Christmas CD is on a loop and I love the preparation as much as the result to which it leads. I LOVE Christmas; my aim is to make it as yummy a cosy, family time for me and my men as I can. Bring on the snow as we all love the idea of having to stay home by the fire!

Therefore I'm starting off in red as I'm in really in full festive swing because yesterday the decorations started to go up. I normally wait until today but the weekends fall a bit skew this year, plus we have guests to stay next weekend and I want to be totally tinsel central by the time they arrive. Eeeek! I can't wait to get a pan of Gluhwein, cranberries, orange and cinnamon bubbling away so I have a lovely festive smell in the back ground, too. I'm about done apart from a few table decorations. I like to have some of those around but this year I'm trying to make it easier to dust things by the decorations being easy to move if you understand me.

As you may have seen on an earlier post my preparations began about three weeks ago, I think, when I ordered a few craft items as I normally do at this time of the year. I began, as usual, by making some new tags; these are given as gifts, for decorations for people or to go around the house. I have to say I'm totally addicted to making these; I definitely have my own style when it comes to these and this year I've used some fab vintage paper I found last year. A couple of things have come out beautifully including this fab card and then I'm very pleased with the tags. 

When Jon had gone to work and the boys were away to school I began with the paper chains in the living room as these go corner to corner and need to be in place before the tree is brought into the house; I think the tree will be here on Tuesday. Then with the festive tunes blasting out I was bobbing between the kitchen and the living room putting the other decorations up.These are the perpetual advent calendars, the 1-24 garland on the sideboard above the drinks tray, mmmm. and my mantle piece items which include more paper chains and decorated jars. In the kitchen I have the paper chains Alf and I made from some more of the vintage paper. I LOVE the dresser now as I made the banner, too, and I always have a couple of the cards on there which the boys made when they were tiny.

I really enjoy bringing the greenery into the house and always like to have it sit in a bucket for a few days to give it a good drink. This year I'll be decorating with some for our visitors but doing the main lot a little earlier, too, due to us going away for a couple of days between Christmas and New Year. (We have an Airbnb booking for NYE so will be back in time for that.) It is just a gorgeous thing to have in the house and on Boxing Day when we have a little get together with the neighbours I love draping the table with holly, twisted willow and ivy from the garden plus pin lights, of course, between the tasty goodies. Can never have enough pin lights!

A couple of new additions this year will be a pompom wreath and a rag-and-pin-light garland. (There they are again!) The wreath is for the TV room, which has a purple wall along with Marvel and DC comic pictures, and can take something a little less traditional as you see by the colours I'll be using! I began making the pompoms when we lived at our previous house! They were meant for a rug but.... so I'm giving this project a go using a glue gun so will hopefully last a few years. I'm also interested in making some pompom bookmarks as gifts. 

The garland is something I've wanted to have a go at for ages.

I'm really pleased with how it turned out and for once I have something on the banister.

Christmas cake and mincemeat are made, sloe gin is sitting in the cellar brewing nicely (I'm sure that isn't the right word) and I'll hopefully make the first mince pies this afternoon. I've decided on the teacher presents to make this year - some seasonal biscuits and rum truffles - and the calendar is already filling up with school activities. 

Lists and my planner are helping remind me that we pretty much know what we are having on Christmas Day and Boxing Day...

and we're having our mini Christmas this coming weekend full of tasty treats, including mince pies, of course. The boys have their Christmas jumpers, Jon needs a new one and I have festive leggings!

As I sit at the kitchen table I can see this at the window and I feel very festive. Fav word!

Ok. Time to get the brekky sorted, boys out of bed and then later this morning I'm out at our village Winter Fayre which is always a fun thing - Alf love the bottle stall and I get a cuppa and maybe a mince pie.

Lou.

Stir It Up Sunday And Practice Christmas.

Good morning.

Yesterday was Stir It Up Sunday when traditionally puddings etc are made. Well I have already made my cake but I did make my mincemeat. I made it with a base of three packets of suet and for a change I added some dried figs - my new fav fresh fruit so thought why not.

I've made extra to use up some of my suet surplus so this is how it worked out.

I have never cooked my mincemeat but did do this time and i have to admit that as the suet melted and coated the dried fruit it made it plump up and the cooking definitely added to the flavour of the mix. 

Not sure how much I made but it was a lot - some jars are big! I was one jar short so there is some in the plastic container in the fridge which might get use in the next couple of days.

It looks a bit funny where the the suet is showing white but I am assured that is ok.

In the last week or so you know I have been getting round to some Christmas papercrafting. Well, I have begun two little projects which is some mini bunting/Christmas garlands. 

These are about an inch and a little more square in size and are taken from the cover of the 12" x 12" papers I bought - waste not want not! 

The second lot are toppers from cards we have received, stickers put onto card and anything else I had in stock that was the right size. I'll string them together but I haven't decided where to put them yet.

I am starting to feel ridiculously Christmassy and I blame Tracy to be honest - but for that I am grateful! Also this weekend we had a kind of pre-Christmas Christmas when Jon's cousin and her fella came to stay. We were presented with gifts to play and eat in this wonderful case/box - I LOVE it! 

We opened it on Friday night/Christmas Eve playing Quizoo, where you have to guess tunes each of you are playing in a kazoo. On Saturday evening we had turkey dinner, well chicken Thai curry, and crackers then played Pictionary. Sunday was out for coffee and a mince pie on Sunday/Boxing day. Just a fabulously, lovely relaxed time and our ideal kind of Christmas.

We've ordered a three-pack of Christmas DVDs and can't wait to start watching those on Sunday afternoon. Friday,1st December, is D Day, Decoration Day, but I think I'll be sneaking a few out tomorrow as the weekend present box came complete with some lovely silver and blue tinsel and lights.

This week I'm starting niggly little cleaning jobs before the main decorations go up. This includes paintwork behind sofas and tables plus bookshelves needing a proper dusting and tidied out in readiness for greenery to be brought in and placed on top of the cupboards etc.

Since I began writing this a few other things have happened. My eldest has come down with a cracking cough so we are off the doctor shortly, therefore the other is suffering with a bit of lacking in attention issue but have that sorted now I think. Also, my mum has managed to fall over and banged her head and broke a bone in her thigh; she will be flat on her back in hospital for some time I think and her dementia will be a challenge for the nurses... We are also visiting Jon's dad who is due to have a heart valve replacement op today so Jon is off to Nantwich on Saturday morning and I will be staying home as we have an Airbnb booking that night! It never rains, however that is exactly what it has been doing A LOT lately, thought not just now!

**********UPDATE, MUM HASN'T BROKEN ANYTHING SO THAT'S A POSITIVE**********

Hate ending a post on doom n gloom but I'm determined not to let it put a downer on things.

Hope you all had a good weekend and look forward to seeing what you have been getting up to.

Bye for now.

Lou.xx

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!

A cosy good morning to you as I type this. 

Jon lit the Rayburn just before he went to work; I dropped him off as I need the car to fetch the boys from Urdd then him from work this evening. I have lit the living room fire, too, so we are more than ready for the cold weather they are forecasting for later on tonight. 

Bring it on I say!

Prep for Christmas has begun, a little. When food shopping on Friday I picked up these little bits in Lidl. Not sure what to use the little bags for, maybe to put teacher presents in for school, hope to make biscuits with the boys and have them decorate them. 

 The clips will be used for holding up decorations or maybe on the tree. 

The tags on the right I bought from Waterstones. Aaahh, I feel the same way about Waterstones as Holly Golightly does about Tiffany's in Breakfast at Tiffany's; nothing bad could ever happen when you are there, especially when you are stroking lovely notebooks! I plan to use the tags to make garlands as part of the decorations for the boys' rooms.

I have wrapped the small presents we have bought for the boys and they are languishing at the bottom of our wardrobe but the larger ones are in the shed; some need packing and some need big bows on them.

This week I made some red onion relish/chutney. 

To be honest I needed to use them up before I started to use our own onions (eeek), some of which I have in the kitchen; it's yummy and had it this morning on some of our eggs and my toasted homemade bread. Sorry, bit of a smug fest there. 

We had a very short notice Airbnb booking come through on Friday night but money is money so there was a bit of frantic work on Saturday morning. They were coming from Hastings to pick up a puppy; they were a lovely couple and we would gladly have them as guests again. They were the first paying guests to have our delish continental breakfast and they very much enjoyed it.

Yesterday I made my mincemeat and it will sit until I make the first couple of batches of mince pies at the weekend. I think I've made enough but who knows! It's a recipe my mum used to use but I have altered it a bit over the years.

Also yesterday we were doing a few jobs in the garden and here we have some before and after photos. Our latest building project to begin is making a better parking area. Currently we park at the side of the house; you can just see the old car in the distance I think. (Obviously this a photo from earlier in the year!)

This is ok but if we are, hopefully, having more people eventually staying as paying guests we need to have better arrangements for a larger number of cars.

So.this is how the garden looked at the side of the conservatory previously....

and this is now we are starting to look. 

The wall has been cleared as it will be knocked through to make the entrance; Jon will then make a fence where the initial posts have now been placed. We will have to make a trailer trip to the local quarry to find some gravel to make it suitable for the cars to stand on the area.

After I had cleaned out the chooks and got round to covering over three of the tyres near the veg patch,

the small number of turnips I'm growing in the Poly House, hopefully for Christmas or early New Year seem to be coming along..

and the leeks look strong but small; they are about the thickness of my index finger so have some way to go or will be nice as just baby ones.

I was inside doing a few chores; I made a big pan of veg and pearl barley soup for lunch - it was yummy so will be today's lunch, too.

On the list of jobs today is to make a pie for tea - pastry and filling - my bread yeast mix has been started, eggs have been collected, a large rat has been spotted in the compost bin!, Alfie's bed is stripped for making later and I hope to get a couple of the last pages of my December Daily finished; I am sooo close to being done and can't wait to show you the end result. It makes me feel really festive when I am working on it. I have a few things to check on my Christmas plan today as well because the calendar slots of jobs to do and events coming up is filling up fast!

Best have my last cup of coffee and get started.

Bye for now.

Lou. xx