Christmas Eve

The situation at closing time on Christmas Eve.

Presents are all wrapped.

They all turned up despite the postal services & the weather's best efforts for them not too!

And despite the wrapping paper shortage of 2010 (which is how it will be known in future years), only one of them is a mismatch of paper!

Christmas dinner prep work is done.

Children come in handy for doing the tiresome, sorry I mean really important, jobs for which there aren't enough hours in the day to do on top of everything else.

The most important job is Baylie's, of course, picking the tails of the baby carrots... Very important!

This year the turkey is being brined

Looks appetising sitting there in it binbags, doesn't it!

I've never tried this before, so I'm waiting to see how this one turns out.

The Pudding is ready

Girdlebuster pie, from Nigella Christmas
.

Yummy!

Santa's treats for all his hard work are ready.

The (over-exicited) kids are pyjama-ed up, and waiting for hot chocolate with marshmallows before they go to bed.

Merry Christmas Everyone.

The Powers that be obviously don't like me blogging.

Everytime I get into a bit of a rythm, life come along and messes everything up.

This time it was in the form of stomach bugs and vomit... Lovely.

I thought I'd managed to avoid it.. that is until yesterday! Damn.

That was after I lost my voice in the middle of the week... as if my kids needed an excuse to ignore me!

The weather, although fine here, is causing havoc with my Christmas present deliveries.

Fingers crossed that everything gets here on time, because I don't think the kids will buy the excuse of Santa being backlogged because of the snow.

So now I have 5 days, in which to brave Sainsburys for the "BIG" grocery shop.

Wrap everything... well finding everything first would probably help!

Is it just me or do other people find presents during the spring clean that were too well hidden / fell out of a bag at the back of the wardrobe /  under the bed?

I'm hoping its not just me and Clark Griswald that do that!

source

There is also family to entertain, food to prepare, Festive family films to watch ( "Harry & the Henderson's" is this afternoon's offering!) and children to try and keep out from under my feet!

So I wish everyone a stress free time in preparing for Christmas.

Well we can all wish... It is the season for miracles!

Stars of wonder.

Yet another glittery post.

Well it is Christmas and unless you have glitter stuck to every inch of skin, carpet and wall, you're obviously not embrassing the season enough!

This time it the turn of the elder girls school play.

Tabatha was a narrator and she delivered her lines very confidently.

I'm not even going to pretend that I'm not really proud of that, as it means that she is one of the top 3 readers in her class.

And Ria was a child.

She had to spend some time getting into character for that one!

The concept of their play was that aliens have landed on Earth and are being explained the true meaning of Christmas by a bunch of schoolchildren.

If thats not a inter-galactic diplomatic incident in the making I don't know what is!

Then everyone turned into stars and danced around.

This is where the glitter comes in if you were wondering.

I made their costume based on the same tutorial as Baylie's angel dress.

With a sprinkling of Glitter.

Baylie was chosen to be an Angel in her Preschool group's nativity.

Time to cut up bedsheets, cardboard, tinfoil, tinsel and give it all a generous shake of glitter.

I 'm not going to lie, it took a lot of coaxing to get her on stage.

She'd been excited to wear her costume, that is until the minute she walked into the village hall with all the other kids, then she didn't want to be an angel, she didn't want a tinsel halo and she didn't want her wings on.

I somehow managed to persuade her to stop crying and sit up on the stage to sing her songs.

I could have stayed on stage with her, but that wasn't going to happen.

So she sat on stage with her grumpy chops, didn't sing a note and yawned a lot!

Then again so did most of the kids! The only singing you could hear was from their playworkers!

Maybe 4 and under is a bit young to expect them to sing and perform on stage.

Her angel costume came by way of this tutorial, but the decoration of gluey blobs and glitter, I have to hold my hands up and say that I stole it from a previous angel costume made some 25 years ago.

but I'm sure my mum won't sue!

If she does, I'll counter-sue her for the shockingly bad haircut! What is going on with that, Mother? I look like a boy! A boy with blue eyeshadow on!

Posting this picture is showing dedication to this blog, I had to rummage around in the loft to find that, without a flashlight and with snow on the roof... Chilly & Dark!

Tomorrow its the big girls turn.

So this is Christmas...

... and what have you done?

Well our tree is up and decorated. The poor thing did stand in the corner of the room naked for a while as I ran out of time and energy to decorate it.

I was tempted to go for the Organic look, but I don't think I'd have got away with that.

The children helped decorate.

It makes more work. You have to go along afterwards and remove all the baubles that have been hung repeatedly from the same branch.

I fixed Tinkerbell.

I was really chuffed about that because I love my Tinkerbell fairy for the top of the tree. She came all the way from Disneyland, and I'm not going back just to get another one.

Last year she came out of the box minus wings and fingers, and no amount of superglue would fix her.

But thanks to the miracle of hot glue, she is back in her rightful place.

The kids are pleased.

But I think next year a new theme might be needed for the tree.

We've been using the same baubles and bits for quite a while now and a feel a change coming on.

And if Christmas could be kind enough not to sneak up on me next year as it has been doing for the past couple of years, maybe I might get to turn the whole house into a tastefully decorated festive home.

Cookie Mix Jars

Eternally organised, my children chose the day after the tesco driver had risked his life in the snow to deliver the groceries, to remind me that they needed a jar full of sweets or treats for their class stall at the Christmas fayre next week. And that it had to be in by today!

Call me mean, but I don't tend to have bags of sweets lying around the house for just such occasions, nor am I fond of parting with my nice "Bonne Maman" jam jars. Those are reserved for my own jam.

So with a days notice, cupboards devoid of sweets or treats, and I still had three costumes to make for the Christmas plays (also suddenly due by today!), a bit of ingenuity was called for: Cookie mix jars!

A quick search on the internat gave me two recipes.

Chocolate chip and Coconut Crunch Cookie for which I had the ingredients already lying around.

A quick raid of the fridge found a large sauerkraut jar of which the contents had seen better days and a jar of mincemeat that can live in a tupperware box for a week until I make my mincepies.

And the results.

Sufficiently Christmas-sy and presentable.

Given more time (and access to a proper shop), I would have added some the special festive coloured M&Ms into the mix.

Why does it say "Feliz Navidad" I hear you ask... Well, just because I like the sound of it, and I'm a bit wierd like that.

At the end of the day, if cookie mix jars are good enough for the Queen of sweet treats, Bakerella herself, then they are good enough for me.

I suppose the true test of whether or not I've done a good job on a non-existent budget, will be how long they remain on the jar stall next friday!

Pumpkin Soup

There is still snow on the ground and the wind is arctic.

At least its not currently snowing and the cold winter sun is out, although the forecast are still full of promises of more snow, cold and general winteriness that will stop me from getting my christmas shopping done again this weekend.

Yes I have heard of internet shopping before you ask, but sometimes I like to look at things in the flesh before finding them cheaper online.

Anyway to make everyone feel cosy and warm, here is a post about soup.

I did mention my quest for the ultimate pumpkin soup a while back, and this is this years attempt.

I have hijacked two recipes here and blended them into my own, so I think I'm allowed to share.

Pumpkin Soup (2010 version)

adapted from The River Cottage Year and What to Eat Now

Take 1 pumpkin ( I had a big arsed one, so I only used half for the soup.. the rest went into pie)

chop it into chunks, no need to peel.

Put pieces in a roasting pan along with some olive oil,  about 4 or 5 garlic cloves also unpeeled, salt and pepper.

Mix it all up to coat the pumpkin with the oil.

Roast in a hot oven (190 C / gas 4) for about 40 minutes.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a little (unless you have asbestos hands), and use a spoon to scrape the flesh from the skin and squish the garlic out of their skins too.

In a large pot, soften 2 onions in some butter for about 10-15mins, add the pumpkin flesh, a cinnamon stick, a pinch of nutmeg, a teaspoon of sea salt and about 1.5 litres of hot chicken stock (or vegetable if you prefer)

Simmer it for about 20 - 30 minutes or so.

Fish out the cinnamon stick and blend until smooth.

You can add more stock or seasoning now depending on thickness and taste.

I did add extra salt at this point.

This made a very tasty soup, but it still only pleased 2 and a half people out of 4.

The half is Tabatha who likes things to start with then doesn't finish them.
Ian doesn't count at all because he has not tastebuds and is very unadventurous when it comes to food... he didn't even try it!