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Christmas

Christmas

1 week to Christmas – Wahooo!

1 Week To Christmas – Wahoo!

Are you as excited as I am?! It’s only 1 week to Christmas – Wahoo!

I’ve really enjoyed the run-up to Christmas this year. Far from being stressed, I’m very relaxed and happy with how the organising is going.

I can’t wait to see the kids faces on Christmas morning and to have Nanny and Chi-Chi spend the day with us. Ant’s doing all the cooking so I get to relax and play with the kids while he slaves over a hot stove!

He’s an excellent cook and I’m looking forward to our Christmas dinner 🙂

How are your Christmas plans coming along?

Christmas

Jelly Baby Jesus Cakes

Ella made jelly baby Jesus cakes for the advent activity today. She did it on her own because Kaycee was busy decorating her gingerbread house for her class party tomorrow.

I forgot to buy the icing to cover the little baby and we used Star Wars cereal instead of shredded wheat because it’s in the shape of stars and moons and we like it but apart from that, they’re exactly the same! Hahaha :oD

Maybe we’ll try making them again sometime and make sure we have everything we need!

We’ll be saving some for Granddad and Nanny and maybe taking some to family in Belper.

Jelly baby jesus cakes - Chocolate cereal cakes with a jelly baby on top

 

Christmas

Kaycee’s gingerbread house

Kaycee cutting the dough

Kaycee’s got a Christmas party at school on Thursday and instead of buying a couple of packets of biscuits for her contribution, she wants to take a gingerbread house in!

We don’t get much time in the evenings after school due to Kaycee going to Guides on a Monday, Ella going to cubs on a Wednesday, Granddad coming to dinner on a Thursday and the kids going off to Derbyshire for the weekend on a Friday so the only day we have free is a Tuesday.

Christmas Cookies

Ella’s got her Christmas party tomorrow and thankfully she didn’t want to take a gingerbread house, she wanted to take stained glass cookies so I’ve spent all afternoon making gingerbread dough for Kaycee and sugar cookie dough for Ella then all evening helping them roll the dough, cut the shapes and bake them.

Ella's finished cookies

 

Close up of reindeer cookie

 

 

Daddy helping Kaycee cut the dough
Baked gingerbread house pieces

 

Assembling gingerbread house

Gingerbread House

We managed to get the walls stuck together and when the girls went to bed, I got the roof pieces on. Kaycee’s going to decorate it while Ella is at Cubs tomorrow night.

We used icing made with icing sugar and egg whites instead of water, It makes a much better glue to stick the pieces together

I’ll update the post tomorrow with Kaycee’s finished masterpiece 🙂

Wednesday 16th

Kaycee finished the gingerbread house and is very proud of it 🙂

Starting to decorate the gingerbread house

 

Front of finished gingerbread house

 

First side of finished gingerbread house

 

Back of gingerbread house

 

Second side of gingerbread house

 

Christmas, Reviews & Adverts

Christmas Movies

I’m crazy about Christmas, as you probably know by now, and one of the best things about the season for me is watching Christmas movies.
I start watching them in November when Movies 24 changes to Christmas 24, despite the super wonderful husband and eldest child commenting that it’s not even December and Christmas movies shouldn’t be watched until then!

Christmas 24 Movie Channel

I don’t agree, obviously, and was delighted when Panasonic, the people who make the wonderful looking Viera 4K TV, (Santa, if you’re reading this, I’ve been extra good all year, right?!) asked me to write about my favourite Christmas movies.
I’ve seen all the weekend premieres that air on Christmas 24 throughout November and December as well as some old favourites from our large Christmas movies DVD collection.

There are some movies I just have to watch every year, ones that transport me back to my own childhood Christmases and help me feel that special excitement only children feel!

Christmas Movies

On that note, I thought I’d share some of the ones I’ve enjoyed this year as well as my ‘must watch every year’ movies which includes my all time favourite movie, It’s A Wonderful Life 🙂

A prince from Europe meets a charming waitress when he travels to America during the Christmas holiday to escape an arranged marriage.

 

When newspaper staffer Susan sets out to write an article about her family’s much-storied heirloom Christmas angel, it leads her to accidentally meet Brady, a cute, upbeat artist who whisks the resistant Susan into a holiday-time friendship–and maybe more. But will the 100-year-old, hand-carved angel, whose legend includes the power to bring people together, prove a game-changer for the skeptical Susan as it moves her closer to Brady–and to a surprising truth about the ornament itself?

With two more weeks until Christmas, a busy businessman, Marc Rehnquist, hires a struggling artist, Anna Parisi to help him pick out gifts for his friends and family.

A small town girl who moved to New York to pursue her dreams returns home for the holidays, only to realize that maybe her dreams aren’t miles away, but right in her hometown.

My ‘must watch every year’ movies are:

 

An angel helps a compassionate but despairingly frustrated businessman by showing what life would have been like if he never existed.

An angel must show a mother the true meaning of Christmas. It’s not just presents and materialistic things, but the people she cares about.

An oil company is exploring two Arctic sites for oil. The needed blasting at the first site rocks Santa Claus’ North Pole village. He realizes that any blasting at the second site will destroy his home. He enlists the aid of a woman and her children to convince her husband (who works for the company) that the first site is where the oil they want is. Along the way, Santa explains all his secrets in delivering presents all around the world.

 

The Muppet characters tell their version of the classic tale of an old and bitter miser’s redemption on Christmas Eve.

I watched It’s a Wonderful Life at the weekend while wrapping Christmas presents and sipping a glass of Bailey’s 🙂

I’ve got the girls home this weekend so we’ll be watching One Magic Christmas and The Night They Saved Christmas while wearing our pyjamas and snacking on the Christmas treat trolley goodies!
I might even treat myself to some of the Salted Caramel liqueur that my dad bought me. Well, it is Christmas, after all 🙂

What’s on your ‘must watch’ Christmas movies list?

Please note: This is a collaborative post

Christmas, Reviews & Adverts

My new Christmas tree :)

My New Christmas Tree lit at night

New Christmas Tree

I love my new Christmas tree!

Love it, love it, love it!
I reckon this must be the best tree I’ve ever had. The shape, the fullness, the quality, it’s all wonderful.
I’ve been sat here, waiting for the girls to come home from school and I’ve just been admiring my new tree from Christmas Tree World.

Needle Branches

The branches had needles instead of the tinsel branches you get on cheaper artificial trees. The needles on the tree feel like soft rubber which helps keep the ornaments from slipping off. It was lovely not to have to bend the branches around the hooks to keep the ornaments on!

Because the tree is so full, it took Ant and me quite a long time to open up all the branches. It was really worth taking the time, though, as it’s a lovely shape once it’s all opened up.

New Christmas Tree in the daytime

Tree Decorations

Every year since our children were born, we’ve bought them a tree decoration and they’re getting a nice collection each now 🙂 We let them decorate the tree, only really helping with the lights. I love seeing their excitement when they get their tins of decorations out and start putting them on the tree.

Because our new tree has so many branches, the decorations have been spread out more and you can see them much better.

Decorating Tips

For tips on decorating your tree, check out this useful blog post from the people at Christmas Tree World

Last year I wanted a real Christmas tree as I’d never had one. I had all these idealistic visions of walking in the room every morning and being greeted with the Christmas tree smell they always talk about in the movies.

Our tree didn’t smell. At all! It was smaller than we were used to and high maintenance because I had to keep remembering to water it!

Suffice to say, I won’t be buying a real tree again. Our new one is much nicer than a real one could ever be :o)

Decorated Christmas tree

 

I think this tree is going to last for years to come and I can’t explain how happy that makes me. Christmas, as you may know, if you know me at all, is my absolute favourite time of year and to finally have a Christmas tree that I really love, makes me happy 🙂

Please note: I was sent a tree in return for an honest review.

Christmas

2 weeks to Christmas

2 weeks until Christmas

2 Weeks Until Christmas

2 weeks to Christmas. Less than a week until the end of school and as usual, I’m looking forward to switching the alarm off for a couple of weeks!

All the family presents are bought and wrapped and all the rest of the presents will be wrapped tomorrow while I’m watching, It’s a Wonderful Life, sipping on a glass of Baileys with ice and enjoying a few Cadbury’s roses; after all, it’s not Christmas without Baileys and Roses!

Ella’s gone to school today in her reindeer onesie as they’re having a Polar Express day. I can’t wait to hear all about it 🙂

 

Christmas, Family

Where’s the snow?

For Christmas 2013 I bought Aiden, Kaycee, and Ella a sledge each. They still have the stickers on because we’ve HAD. NO. SNOW.

No Snow

It’s not fair! I’m getting a bit fed up with our snowless Christmases now! I used to LOVE going down The Flat (someone’s idea of a joke name for a big hill I used to walk up to get to school every morning!) on a sledge and would spend hours playing with my friends.

Ok, so snowless Christmas isn’t strictly true, it snowed quite heavily on Boxing day last year, but it was gone by the next day and anyway, it was Boxing day which meant Christmas had done and as far as I was concerned, it could have stayed away!

Snow Angels

Ella keeps asking when it’s going to snow because she wants to go out and make snow angels. She also wants to build snowmen and have snowball fights with Kaycee and Aiden. I want them to pack the snow down tight on the path and make a wonderful ice slide like we used to do in the school playground then subsequently get told off for making the playground ‘dangerous’!

The talk of sledging in December is almost as prevalent as the talk of getting the paddling pool out is in the summer! If I let them, the girls would spend all day swimming in the pool; they don’t even care when it rains!

It seems to be every day that someone mentions the snow and quite frankly, I think I’d rather it still be summer because getting some sun in the summer is more likely than getting some snow in the winter!

Snow in 2012
Winter 2012 – Wish it would snow like this again!
Christmas, Crafts

Christmas Crafting

Our advent activity today was to do some Christmas crafting.
Kaycee’s made a lovely card for a teacher at school and Ella had great fun making a glittery card for her great Nan-Nan as well as a tree decoration and gift box for Santa 🙂

Christmas crafting - Kaycee colouring

 

Christmas crafting - Ella crafting
Ella’s decorating a little box for Santa
Christmas crafting - Kaycee making a Christmas card
Kaycee made a Christmas card for one of the teachers at her school

 

Christmas crafting - Kaycee's finished card
She was very proud of it and I think she did a great job 🙂

I’ve got some more photos to add but for the life of me, I can’t find my camera!
I’ll be back tomorrow, when I’ll have, hopefully, found it 🙂

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