Advent Calendar bloghop

You have no idea how honoured I feel to have 24th December as my Advent Calendar date.  I don't know where Jo gets the idea that I am excited from although she said it's something to do with the fact that her computer glows red and bounces up and down when she receives an email from me!!!  Imagine if it was snowing too...

Anyway, this is my offering for Christmas.  I bought the kit at the Harrogate show and have never tried beading before...well other than adding beads to cross stitch designs.  I loved it!  Something happened to it and one bit came undone so I unpicked it and started it again which didn't take too long.

Spellbound Beads - Starry Night kit

We don't have many traditions as such that revolve around food in our house.  Our big (non food) tradition is doing the Christmas decorating.  The first full weekend of December, the tree goes up.  Our tree is huge!  It is 7.5 feet tall and with the angel on top there is about an inch gap between her head and the ceiling.  So the big tree box comes out of the cupboard and the children sort the colour coded branches out.  Then the 'fun' part of making the branches look like a real tree begins.  The children do the donkey work whilst I add them to the tree and titivate them so they look their best.  Once this is done I put the lights on the tree. Aftwerwards, all four of us take it in turns to choose a piece of tinsel for me to put on the tree with the only rule being not to have two of the same colour next to each other.  Then the decorations come out and we take it in turns to choose one and add it in a suitable space.  The only person allowed to hang the lovely Kris Kringle that I received from Shirlee about 10 years or so ago is me and it goes where I can see it from where I sit.  I also tend to hang all the cross stitch ones I have been gifted whereas anyone can add the ones I have made.

The final thing to be added is the angel on top.  This year she was added by Rachael.

For food 'traditions' we have breakfast first of all.  Breakfast is either croissants or pain au chocolats depending on who wants what.  Sadly Rachael is very fussy and ends up with either a bowl of cereal or bog standard toast.  She might go really mad and have some Nutella on it this year!!

Christmas dinner is cooked by Colin who does a better roast dinner than me.  We have turkey and gammon with mash and roast potatoes.  Veg wise it's a mix of sprouts, runner beans (home grown but frozen!), peas, carrots, parsnips, butternut squash, cauliflower and broccoli.  Different people eat different veg so we cook them in the steamer and add bits for each person! There is also yorkshire pudding and stuffing with gravy. After dinner, we leave having dessert for a long time!  This tends to be a gateau of some kind, this year is a Marks and Spencer's strawberry gateau.  

Then that is all the big cooking done for the Christmas period.  Boxing Day is a buffet meal with everything being a bung in the oven or whip out the fridge item.  From then on, we tend to graze on buffet bits for the next few days just cooking up things as we need more to add to it.

Christmas Day and Boxing Day see the children allowed to eat chocolate/sweets whenever they want to without asking.  Not until after Christmas dinner though!  Usually sweets are a treat which are generally only eaten after meals.

On New Year's Day we recreate the Christmas dinner as our first meal of the new year.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and wish you peace and joy (with some stitchy gifts thrown in).