Okay, I’ve postponed it for long enough. Christmas is officially around the corner. Advent calendar down to one more door to open and we have to fulfil Lo’s request from the very start of this project, to make snowflakes.

I’m not in a very good mood at the moment and finding this process slightly frustrating. I ended-up folding the paper and cutting out the shapes (because the folded paper was a bit too dense for little hands to manage effective cutting), while Lo diligently folded paper into a miniature hat and coloured it in and Rohan took turns with me to use the scissors. He cut straight lines out of another piece of paper and then stuck tape onto it.

I suggested that we paint the patterns onto black paper using the snowflakes as templates. With my weary eyes and aching ribs we resorted to just gluing the shapes onto the paper. Logaan said “I just want to do it the quick way.” Fully agreed!

Rohan was my star at gluing and sticking the patterns on. He loves to sing while he works. Glue finished now. Lo arranged them in the order to be hung. Not such a bad day after all.

Back to cakes! My mum is a big Christmas food traditionalist and spends most of November preparing mince pies, Christmas puddings, and Christmas cakes. We were lucky enough to receive one this year, and all we needed to do is decorate it. I wasn't feeling too well today though (running nose, sneezing, sore throat, etc etc), but had promised to do this after work. The greedy vultures had been closing in, but I'd said categorically that no cake was being eaten until the decorating had been done (so extra pressure there).

I cheated a little by buying ready-made coloured icing that looks and behaves a lot like playdough. I also had some writing icing in the cupboard from previous bakings. Eilir had already had the idea that he wanted Father Christmas and a 'carw' (reindeer) to feature. I started with Santa, and then realised that I didn't have any pink 'playdough' icing - so plumped for a 'Simpsons' yellow face instead. Eilir made his carw and I suggested breaking up some bamboo barbecue skewers to reinforce the antlers. I started the snowman, again in yellow, as Eilir commented "Like someone wee'd on it" (boys and their toilet humour....). Eilir then took over, making a scarf, hat, eyes, etc. He again used bits of skewers for the arms, but was a bit concerned that someone might try to eat them. Last came the sleigh covered in presents, this started with each of us making individual presents, then Eilir suggested that he should make the squares and I should decorate them. As we were doing this he mused "We're like a factory, a house factory. We're elves, cake elves". The last parcel was made by Eilir and decorated with silver balls - this was to be HIS present.

It's a paper maché polar bear standing on a pizza base ice berg, with its cub. I love the way G painted the 2D cub looking up at the 3D mum. I had gone out of the room to put something in the sink, I didn't even know we were painting stuff on the iceberg, I just put it there to give the wobbly bear a bit of stability. Mini jaffa cake packaging made the initial structure, actually we were trying to make a reindeer inspired by a muddy deer hunting trek in Margam Park, but it just began to look like a polar bear so we went with it...