Monday 24 December 2007
Glad Tidings
Thursday 20 December 2007
Festive Cheer
Found the perfect thing to display my collection of vintage Christmas postcards but annoyingly I can't actually hang it on a door (it's propped up on the floor here) because our doors turn out to have weird laminate on them and I can't even knock a nail in!
Enjoy the shortest day, hope it leaves everyone enough time!
Tuesday 18 December 2007
Downhill to the Big Day
And with fingers crossed we don't crash in a big heap at the bottom! Cripes, where is all the time going? I've finished work though - yippee - I'm feeling festive and have already eaten my own weight in chocolates! Had lots of fun catching up with friends over the last few days, its been so nice to swap news and shopping traumas.
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- Fruits and foliage - I don't buy flowers in November and December. They feel so much like spring and I try to hold it back because the pre-Christmas anticipation zips by so quickly. Admittedly I go a bit bonkers in the New Year for daffs and buy a bunch of flowers a week until October. In midwinter though I love ilix, laurel, fir, holly, mistletoe, snow berries, fir cones and for Christmas we add bowls of satsumas, whole nuts, brightly wrapped sweets and cranberries.
- The wrist tape dispenser is a thing of beauty - and unbelievabely the one I bought last year has turned up, didn't vanish in the move and I've even remembered to buy a refill! No more snipping tape, tearing my hair out when I can't find the end of it, trying to unpeel it from the cat - aaggh! Someone is smiling on me.
- I do love Christmas cards - and I put up favourite ones we've been given in the past back up every year. I've got packets and packets and even hang up blank ones because the pictures are so lovely. Blimey, tragic or what, we do get some proper ones honestly!
- My dad's annual festive joke has passed on to my little family, "So kids, Christmas morning breakfast, what's it to be? Cereal or chocolates? Shall I get the milk?" - We eat lunch early to give the boys chance to play in the afternoon or go for a walk so we never have a big breakfast and treat of the year is choosing a curly-wurly if you really fancy it.
Hope everyone has a lovely, busy, but not too hectic week.
Friday 14 December 2007
Keep Calm & Carry On
In the change from cold to mild, easterly to southwesterly, high pressure to lower pressure, there is a possibility of snow, briefly. It may well be a short lived event as the trend is for little precipitation of any sort.
If there is snow, it's likely to be on Christmas Eve.
I'm not sure I can contain the excitement. Even the TV weather woman said she might have a fiver on a White Christmas this year. Oh my word!
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The frost on our road hasn't melted for three days and the drive to work has been magical. Ice-rimed trees, ghostly looking branches and misty hollows mixed with blinking fairy lights in the distance looks so gorgeous.
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Monday 10 December 2007
Jolly holly
*** office meal out tomorrow evening
*** Woody's 40th, friend for coffee and dinner out for the birthday boy Wednesday
*** Last day at work and tons of stuff to finish off on Friday
*** Farmer's market with Lucy and collect toy chest from cousin's on Saturday
Decorations to finish, baking to do, school Christmas service, food shopping to get in, carols in a cave (brilliant believe me!) ... and I love it all!
I went on the school trip on Friday with B and although it was a very long way away for 3, 4 and 5 year olds on a coach, we did enjoy it and it was all very festive. It was basically a woodland walk with nursery tale tableaux and a winter village complete with elf workshop, Father Christmas and even snow! I'd been a bit dubious but it wasn't too commercial, once you'd paid all the rides were free and it was just right for the children's age group. I remember going to the grotto in the big department store when I was little and being absolutely mesmerised. Looking at it all through the little one's eyes I saw a glimpse of how Christmas used to feel a long time. Magic!
Early start tomorrow as I'm collecting my friend Lucy ahead of our office do and the forecast is for a thick frost and a sparkling morning. Christmas is definitely coming!
Wednesday 5 December 2007
Delights of December
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Traditions - "we always...", everyone has them don' t they and I'm enjoying so much having the chance to pass some onto our little family and create some of our own. The best bit for me is cosying up with the family and sharing happy times but there are also the little, ordinary things that make Christmas extra special and some of my favourites are:
*** having fresh sheets and pyjamas on Christmas Eve
*** making jam tarts
*** fetching the turkey from the wonderful butcher in a gorgeous estate village and calling in at the cafe for a nice, warm drink
*** the carol service (my sisters and I did a lot of singing at school and college and Christmas was a round of concerts and services that were such fun and the perfect build up to the big day. The festive season is a lot about singing for me!)
*** peeling and chopping the veg to Carols From King's
*** pouring over the Christmas Radio Times, even though Woody is a TV reviewer and knows weeks ahead what'll be on. He's very good though and just tells me a few snippets
*** watching The Snowman
*** a walk around the lanes and appreciating the peace and quiet
*** having to have chocolate oranges, Elizabeth Shaw mints and a box of Roses in
*** a large Bailey's on Christmas Eve (hopefully in the bath when everything is finished!)
Bookshop catalogues - so many books I'll never read but browsing with a cup of hot coffee is a proper treat.
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Farmer's Market Scrum - the veg shop a few days before Christmas is always a bit mad but the stall holders at our local one are really friendly and full of festive cheer - (goodness, my Christmas sounds like something out of Dickens!)
Not long to go now, and I've already got the chocolates in. Wonder if I can last?