It’s that Chrimbo limbo time, the presents are all open, but we still have family to visit, leaving on the train tomorrow for three and a half hours of quality time together, people watching, pulling faces at other peoples too loud phone conversations, doing puzzles, reading stories to whoever has to sit by us, and wondering if we can afford a something from the trolley.  Cherries picked from the 'whoops' selection in Asda's need eating and G suggests a chocolate cherry bun recipe, as she particularly enjoys de-stoning three or four and then leaves the rest for me.  We decided to make them look like Christmas puddings by turning them upside down and icing them with a thick blob of white icing green glitter icing holly leaves, and berry sugar balls. G did a lot of it herself, I was chief get the eggshell out of the mixture monitor, and do the final stirring when arms get tired and fancy pogoing around the house on the new bungee bouncer that Father Christmas supplied. This is fitting as on the actual Christmas day, me and G served the pudding and custard by that very transportation method of pogoing it from the kitchen to the living room to our assorted diners. Possibly that cherry beer had affected me a little more than I had thought at the time......but it was G's suggestion, and we are a team.

Christmas Eve, and a pleasant day spent visiting friends.  Happy in the knowledge that we had found the ripe plantain for the Christmas breakfast, and that the peas were slow cooking themselves for the rice and peas as we went about our business, we could relax.  G announced that she would be leaving sustenance out for Father Christmas and his reindeer, in the shape of biscuits. 'Not the spoon it out kind, the kind you can cut out'. I began to look out for cutters of a vaguely Christmas theme, however, G said she wanted stockings and Christmas trees, and she would be cutting them out with a knife. We both made a mix simultaneously in our separate bowls, mine was too wet and surely of the spoon it out variety.  In fact it was pronounced that I had made buns. We began to pay a bit more attention to G's and she triumphantly managed to turn out a soft dough onto a heavily, maybe some would venture a little too heavily floured table.  Despite the fact that we were working in conditions where health and safety would demand some kind of mask, we managed to see enough through the billowing clouds of flour to pat out the dough and G set to work cutting her shapes.  She actually did really well, cutting stockings, crescent moons, stars and Christmas trees, as well our favourite, snowmen, which we said we would ice white. However when they came out of the oven, we found we either could not be bothered to get the icing out, or as G said 'we want them to be healthy don't we, for the reindeers? Concern for the hardworking reindeers' dental hygiene demanded we leave them exactly as they are..........

In the absence of real snow, a 3d snow star was piled up with polystyrene packing pieces. Other projects were a giant Santa's beard, a snow man, and a Christmas tree.  This was our favourite, but there could be more to come......

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...

Party time in our house, friends coming round, big tradition of homemade games going back certainly 3 generations that I know of. My Nanna being an expert at circle games, although the prizes were a bit different in those days, I remember handkerchiefs with nursery rhymes on or your initial embroidered in the corner, hey, sometimes it was someone else's initial, but somehow just as coveted, and brown plastic combs, or murray mints, and once I won a tiny bottle of bubble-bath, I was on cloud nine. Anyway, although G never had the joy to meet this pocket wonder of a Nanna, she has fully imbibed the ethos of cutting up that cereal box and making a party game. I was simply the provider of scissors, water, brushes and getting the paint down from the shelf, I was beginning to feel a bit left out when I got offered to do some of the background, and was asked a little bit of advice about the boots. I am proud to say I also cut the mouth bit out of the beard. The rest from sketching out to painting, cutting out and checking it worked was all down to G, another pocket wonder I should say. A pin the tail on the donkey style game, but it is pin the 6 different features on the Father Christmas. Blu tak on the back of each feature, a scarf to gently blindfold your competitors, and optional spinning of course...

G flicking through recipe books again, got an idea for these filo pastry Santa sacks. The question was, what should the filling be? The book recommended feta cheese and rocket, but G was not happy with this. I suggested apple and raisins, a bit of a mince pie feel, but G said they had to be for dinner, and came up with chopped red onion, quorn, and chopped tomatoes, cooked in a pan for a while until she reckoned they were soft enough and then wrapped up in the pastry layers. G spent ages cutting each layer of pastry into six fairly equal squares, and really loved painting them with olive oil and a pastry brush. End result: G said she preferred the risotto I had done to fill us up and just toyed with one, big sister rejected the risotto and scoffed 5. Jack Spratt and all that, it was all vegie so they must have got some of their 5 a day somewhere along the line.....

G did a set of water colours with goggly eyes and they were so cheery they had to make it into the days of Christmas. We are big rock-pool pokers, fossil finders and crab botherers. If you can get a clear day at this time of year you can discover more than in the warmer weather sometimes, starfish are our absolute favourite find, but G loves Green crabs , particularly the one she named Peter Tolla (?) only she knows why. Heck, we've never forgotten the dogfish we found at Ogmore, although he was far from alive. I got to do some of the backgrounds, I was told to do it carefully and we discussed the importance of the right sized brush for the fiddly bits and letting it dry properly in-between. I did my best. The goggly eyes were a stroke of genius on G's part....

Detangling hair and searching for the very un-festive but pernicious nit isn't great but does give time for some good discussion as to what the next day of Christmas should be.  G has some pretty tricky ideas inspired on the whole by Mr Maker, but until we work out the finer details, stencil cutting was something we could get our, I am glad to say nit free heads round this very night. G drew the subjects, I said I would cut out the shapes, but then the problems began about which bit you will see on the paper and which bit is left white from the stencil. Attempts at Father Christmas left us a bit frustrated as his detailed face became a big hole. A Christmas tree with surrounding presents worked much better, and G was pleased to discover that the angel cut out we thought we were throwing away could be used to make a halo-ish aura shape, next to it. Many angel pictures were then produced until the template was quite soggy and undefined round the edges....

Having spent ages trying to find an affordable panto for family and friends, G decided that we needed invites.  She was trying to describe the shape of theatre curtains, drawing them, gathering up the stair curtains, so I found some material for her to try and make them with. Actually, I think the material is too stretchy and difficult to shape really but she had a good go, and I helped to follow the lines she had drawn on with felt tip to help. It was pretty tricky.  We had been bought a box of chocs the week before, so G used the purple paper from inside, pleating it and then pulling it into a fan shape to make the kind of frontage of the stage, it could be that only me and her get this, but it did mean that we needed to finish the last few chocolates which was a bonus.....

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.......

 

Missed planting bulbs last year and thought it didn't really matter, but you know once Spring comes along you really wish you had. After all the darkness, and soggy leaves I find I am desperate for signs that the garden is waking up again.  So with the last of the misshapen tomatoes pulled up, they are never going to ripen now!, G and me stuffed bulbs in their places rather unceremoniously. Alan Titchmarsh assures me courtesy of TV in the day room at work, that bulbs don't need any special soil or compost and can be packed many to a pot so we took him at his word.  Bamboo compostable pots in the bargain bin at B and Q looked like they had the right texture to actually take decoration without it all peeling/sliding off.  G chose wax candle decorating pens for wiggly lines all ‘round the pot and glass paint pens to draw hearts and flowers at intervals. No help required from me, so we are keeping these ones indoors and taking extra special care of them. The rest will have to fend for themselves......

wow it does seem a bit early, but Christingle gatherings would be all about making these decorations, pomanders I think they are called, basically enough cloves stuck in an orange to preserve it through the season. Can it really be true, well we will hang it up and call it an experiment.  We thought those pumpkins would last forever and then one morning a light touch and the whole smiling face just implodes into mush, to our delight actually.  It smells good at the moment, pipe cleaners were easy to wrap round for G , but some of the cloves were pronounced sharp, the ones that had their little bobble off and look like a spiky star, they were all for me to put in, also a fine paintbrush can make you a hole ready so your thumb doesn't have to take so much punishment. G wants to hang it above a doorway, I imagine we may forget about it and then one morning an unsuspecting person will get it on the top of their head. Have faith in the cloves, must discover what they really are......