Mince pies...

Done way back in November on Christmas-inspired Sat afternoon

Earliest have ever done them - thank goodness for freezers

 

This was probably the first time that Mati had actually helped making cakes, etc from beginning to end, without wondering off half way through.

She helped with the pastry making, rolling, cutting, and decorating

We had some slight disagreements in the artistic realm, she preferred the lids to be full lids with an angel/holly/snowman on top, I preferred it without a lid...we did about half/half...

Our third mission was to get the authentic finishing touch for Eilir's school concert costume.  Eilir has been a shepherd three year's running now (his choice), and has been wearing the outfit I originally sewed together from an old sheet 16 years ago for his older brother!  This year it required a little mending but was otherwise ready to go, all we needed was a shepherd's crook....

This was the weekend of Grandad Leigh's visit (who incidentally is a real life genuine shepherd being a sheep farmer in France), so we went out with the expert to learn some bushcraft (he's also Australian to boot) and to get ourselves an appropriate implement.  We went for a walk in Howardian Nature Reserve to look for a likely specimen.  Grandad advised us that hazel was the best for a sturdy crook and we soon found what we were looking for, he cut a large section which he then cut down to Eilir's size after much "a bit shorter, a bit shorter" from Eilir.  Myself and Eilir then sanded down the rough bits using sandpaper from the house to get a lovely smooth (and hopefully acceptable for school) shepherd's staff.

Grandad also advised us that hazel was the traditional wood brought in for Christmas decoration pre Prince Albert and his fir trees, so watch this space, we have kept the left over section for another Christmas making project.......

The boys made reindeer paintings with their Grammy. Lo wanted to add them to the blog. He describes the making-process:

“Me and Rohan put our foot in brown paint and then pressed it down. And the same with our hands, put one and one in the brown paint and then put it on the reindeer and paint a red nose. Then, picked coloured eyes and wait for it to dry. Grammy really wanted the antlers to be black, not brown, but we decided it should be brown.”

 I thought they’d make great Christmas cards.

During the last few months Noa has become very interested in alphabets and has been practising writing and saying letters in English and in Finnish nearly every day. That’s why we thought it would be a good time to write an important letter to ‘Joulupukki’ (Father Christmas). When I first mentioned the idea to Noa, I asked him to think about what he would like Joulupukki to bring him. Few days later he told me that he had been thinking about his wish list and was ready to write to Joulupukki. We started off in Finnish, continued in English and finished in Finnish again. The letter says: ‘Joulupukille (to Father Christmas), spriderman, lightning McQueen hat, joulukyna (Christmas pen???) t: Noa’. He then also decorated the envelope with snowflakes.

G had found a recipe for ginger Christmas stars in her cookbook, and was determined to try them, particularly as we keep catching this 'bake off' show on CBBC that she is very impressed with. We had to get black treacle specially and it went everywhere, sleeves were in it, blobs were on the floor sticking up socks, G had more or less a complete costume change during the mixing, but it didn’t take long before the mix was in the oven and smelling lush!  As always the big pull was icing and specially chosen sprinkles. Taking heed of a disappointing peppa pig cake experience where the icing ended up so thin it couldn’t stay on the cakes, we added water cautiously. I think they look pretty good, G just ate the silver balls off one and gave the licked cake to me. it was ever thus.......