Holiday Memories

Looking back over the Christmas season, it was definitely one of the best this ye.

It's the first year that G and have I spent together in our house on our own and the first time I've cooked a Christmas dinner.

Last year was a bit of a right off as G was so ill (he was signed off work for 2 months with whooping cough) and it meant that we couldn't really enjoy the season. This year, although G had to be on call so couldn't drink, we have really embraced the holidays.

We spent Christmas day on our own and then headed over to our friends for drinks, nibbles and games in the evening.  On Boxing day I headed over to my parents and G joined us on Friday night after work.

It was so fantastic to spend an extended time with my family and spend quality (shopping!) time with my mum!

I hope you all had the most fantastic holidays.

Homemade Gifts

I am delighted that G and I have spent a lot of time in the kitchen this year honing our skills. 

This meant that we could make something homemade and special for our friends and family this year, while keeping cost down, but putting a lot of time into each and every one.

We have homemade jam, chutney and fudge this year.  We hope all out friends and family enjoyed their tasty treats.

Recipe: Christmas Cake - Stages 2 and 3

Stage 2 - Feeding the cake:

This stage of my Christmas cake making was pretty simple - feed your cake.  I made an alcohol free cake, not for any reason apart from the fact that I didn't have any brandy in the house and also loooove the flavour of earl grey.  

I dribbled a tablespoon of earl grey over the cake once a week for the 3 weeks prior to Christmas. 

Stage 2 done.

Stage 3 - Decorating the cake (the fun bit!):

I cheated with decorating the cake and have to admit that I made neither the Marzipan nor the Royal Icing.  I bought both from ASDA and am hoping (having never made a Christmas cake before)that these are as tasty as if I had made them. 

To get the marzipan to stick to the cake, and add an extra bit of Christmas flavour, heat a bit of marmalade mixed with water and brush this all over the cake.

I love the marzipan layer on an Xmas cake and have heard a good way to add a bit more is to cover the cake in a thin layer, but then add another disc of marzipan just to the top of the cake.

Once the marzipan is on it's time for the icing and making things look pretty.  I'm not a fan of royal icing so I rolled mine as thin as possible. 

A tip for the marzipan and Icing - once you have rolled it out, fold it over your rolling pin to lift it over the cake as this will prevent it from stretching too much as you lift it.

You can make your decorations as simple or extravagant as you want.  I went simple this year for my first year, with just thin icing snowflakes, glued into place with marmalade.

Christmas cake - Done!

Santa Claus is coming to town

I'm a bit of a fan of Father Christmas decorations. I like the fact that there are so many interpretations of Santa, St Nicholas and papa noël and I love the ways that he can be portrayed.

As mentioned before I really like to stick to traditional decorations and not so much of the cartoon Santa fan really.  I am so in love with our new hanging Santa from cath kidston which we bought this year and my favorite decorations are the Father Christmas on top of our tree (no angels or stars here) and the standing Father Christmas that I bought G last year as one of his Xmas prezzies.

This year on our annual shopping trip for new decs we fell in love with the snowy, rustic Santa with the shovel.  We had to take him home so I decided to give him to G as an early Xmas prezzie this year.

They now sit either side of the tele and are treasured Christmas additions to the family.

Mince Pie Magic

There isn't much better at this time of year than homemade mince pies.  Everyone has their different approach to the mince pie: sweet pastry, puff pastry, Filo pastry parcels, lid vs no lid.

I'm a fan of everything but I do think that as you can quite easily eat several of the tasty morsels at one time sometimes a smaller idea of a lid is good.

I stick to ready made mince meat as a base and then add to it as I go.  My mince meat was a Lidl choice and I added orange zest, orange juice, finely chopped cooking apple and glace cherries.

Ingredients:

250g self raising flour

110g butter

1 egg

Pinch of salt

Method:

• Heat oven to 160C.
• Sieve flour and salt into a metal bowl.
• Rub in the butter.
• Mix the egg in a cup, then add to the flour and butter mix.
• Bring together with a metal spatula, adding enough cold water to bring together.
• Kneed briefly to bring together, then place in the fridge for 20 mins.
• Remove from the fridge, roll out, and using a round cutter, cut out the base, and place in a muffin tin.
• Fill each base with a teaspoon mincemeat.
• Cut small stars with the remaining pastry and place on the mincemeat.
• Glaze with an egg.
• Cook in the oven for 20mins. 

Little Christmas Touches

I love the week approaching Christmas as you can really start to embrace the season without looking silly.  This week I wore my festive red and black jumper from Aubin and Wills along with a pretty red ribbon in my hair, added these gorgeous snowflake transfers to my gel nails, and started drinking my coffee each morning from my gorgeous Cath Kidston Mug.

What little things do you change to embrace the Christmas season?

Early Starts

My favourite croissants in the whole world from the Flying Coffee Bean

I am super enjoying my new job and I am up for all things new and learning as much as I can and days out of the office interviewing are a brill way to learn. 

On Wednesday I got to go to our London office, however this meant a 6am alarm and a train at 8.

It was still dark as I ventured out of he house at just gone 7 with a crisp, wintery feeling to the air. But there were some things along my early morning way that just made me smile...

New Christmas delights

Half a metre sausage!! I ate half a metre German sausage! It really seemed like the only option at a German market when they were only £5!!

I travelled up to Birmingham last week in my third week of my new job with a colleague.  I am delighted to have a new job and am working in a recruitment company - bit different from events but I'm really liking it!

We were working all day from the Birmingham a library over looking a cute German Christmas market and the Christmas wheel and ice rink.  It made me feel so Christmassy looking out all day that we couldn't resist popping to the market once we had finished working on our way back from the station.

Twinkle Toes

I'm so excited by these absolutely gorgeous snowflake nail transfers from Amazon.  

I had my fingernails done with shellac a week ago with this gorgeous dark maroon colour and it suits perfectly as a background for the gorgeous snowflake and snowman transfers.  

I have Essie 'wikid' on my toes which is very similar to the shellac colour.  The snowmen are a really nice touch to my thumbs and the snowflakes are sooooo cute on my toes.

It Christmas time

The fireplace with our traditional Jack Wills stockings, 

new mantle piece garland, and the compulsory Poinsettia

We have very traditional hearth decorations and two gorgeous looking Father Christmas characters that stand beside the television, but when it comes to the tree decorations there are no rules.  Our hanging decorations all have meaning, however naff they are they go on the tree, so long as they were given to us by someone special or we bought them to remind us of a special moment.

One of our favourite traditions is to collect a Christmas decoration from our holidays throughout the year.  Each year the collection of our special, meaningful decorations grows. This year we had a Despicable Me decoration from our honeymoon and a wee Scottish Tartan Bagpiper from Edinburgh to add to the tree.

As another tradition we head up to The Gardening Club garden centre at the top of our road each year a couple of weeks before Christmas.  We think about what we need to add to our Christmas collection and have a wander around their Christmas wonderland.  This year we picked up a gorgeous mantle piece garland and a red berry wreath for the front door.

Cute Angel from our gorgeous 4 years old cousin last year

Our much loved artificial Christmas tree from Homebase

G helping fill the trolley with new Xmas goodies and
deciding whether this year we need a real tree or not.

Star decoration lovingly made by Bean and knitted Santa decoration (new this year) from Cath Kidston

Turning Wintery

While I have been off work looking for a new job I have been able to make the most of the lovely autumnal days and head out for some brisk walks.  I tend to just head along the seafront but I thought it might make a nice change to head up the hill and along the racecourse.  

There are some really fantastic views from up here and it's nice as it feels almost a bit countryside!

I saw some gorgeous red and orange colours as the different plants were turning and now a lot of leaves have fallen it definitely feels wintery.

Bring on the chilly weather, burning fires, crisp frosty mornings and the wintery Christmas season.

What made me smile this week

Not On The High Street Baubles - £16.95

Every week I read loads of cool blogs, find amazing things on websites and make recipes that I've found...and then I go and forget all about them and can't find them!

I thought I would share with you some of the things that have been making me happy this week.

My new beautiful boots that were only £35.00 from Next!!! Absolute bargain.  I bought them in 1/2 size too big so that I can wear them with big comfy socks in the winter.

Not On The High Street Christmas Decorations are fab fab fab!! Loving all the ideas and feeling inspired to get out the craft set and start making my own bits and bobs.

New Iphone red case from amazon - professional but fun and super cheap! Just waiting for this to arrive tomorrow.

Tasty crumble and pie in a jar from Fossil.  I love the Fossil blog and definitely am loving following the different subjects and inspiration they bring to it.

Holy Mac - these fried bananas look amazing and I will definitely be making them this week.

I am so pleased I finally got round to putting my new business venture Posh Tot Tea up on Facebook.  

And finally... if you are a cat person and want a bit of a giggle - check this out - Texts from Mittens

Western Boots - Next £35.00

Fried Bananas - Rachel Schultz