Windowsill decoration ideas and Food to stock up on now!

[landwhale]

Hi all fellow festive obsessives :D

I'm hosting xmas dinner this year, and we've decided to put the table in the sun room over looking the garden to leave the kitchen free for us. The room has deepish windowsills (and windows obv) covering 2 walls which I would like to cover in decorations, ideally all matching. We've only just moved into this house so haven't decorated this room before. Does anyone have any ideas/links please?

Also, am starting to add an item a week to my online shop to store for xmas. But can only think of chocolate, booze, nuts, cranberry sauce. Am I missing anything blindingly obvious?! :)

Thanks all!! :)

[70isaLimitNotaTarget]

I put battery operated candles on the windowsill (ours is narrow) there are some nice ones out there with the 'flickering flame' effect.

And a prelit garland on a timer.

WRT the food - have you got storage?
We have our garage at the end of our garden, (the car doesn't stay there and it;s concrete so cold in winter)
We've got a chest freezer in there too.

I buy cans/bottles of soft drink (then transfer them to the porch when we need them) , saves room in the fridge.

Anything I'd buy to keep in the house would get found by my DS

[girlywhirly]

In addition to decorating the sills, you could use those suckered hooks to stick on the glass and hang single decorations from. Ones that catch the light or are translucent/transparent would be good like fake icicles for example. Or you could hang baubles on differing lengths of fine ribbon, and match them to ones on your sill decs. The hooks are good for hanging fairy lights from as well.

Advance food purchases here include biscuits sweet and savoury, crisps, pickles, soft drinks, longlife fruit juice, longlife milk for cooking sauces and custard, tinned fruit for trifle, nuts, vacuum packed chestnuts for the stuffing, sweets and chocolates. Tea, coffee, sugar.

If you make your own cakes and puddings, you can buy the ingredients ahead of time, also mincemeat for mince pies.

Non-food items like foil, cling film, foil baking trays, extra kitchen rolls and loo rolls, wash-up liquid, cleaning solution for spills on carpet. Paper napkins and/or tablecloth.

[CakeNinja]

I always plan to dry orange slices and do stuff with cinnamon sticks, cloves and ribbon but never ever get round to it. Maybe this year?!
And if I bought food in advance id end up having to buy it again as we would just eat it all!
We are rubbish Christmas planners

[0pheliaBalls]

I'd put lots of natural greenery on the sills - boughs of holly, fir, ivy, that sort of thing. A few pinecones perhaps. Then a few candles - battery ones if safety is an issue, though if you use tall candlesticks and keep them away from direct contact with the sprigginess it should be OK (I do this every year). Collecting the bits and pieces on frosty walks in the run-up is all part of the fun, buy you can get some really good fakes too and they're not expensive. My fake ivy - which I wind around tall brass candlesticks - was about 60p per 6ft garland on Amazon. You could also get a small real tree in the room somewhere if there's space - a little 3-footer in a pot. The whole room will smell amazing! A few twinkly warm white fairy lights in the windows would be nice, too.

As for food etc, I've already started buying a bottle here and there. I stock up on Cava, Bucks Fizz for DD (the only thing she'll drink!) and whatever's on special offer - Sainsbury's, Tesco and M&S often do 25% off six bottles in this run up. Also dry goods like stuffing, any tins etc get shoved on the Christmas Shelf in my cupboard. M&S have some brilliant offers in Sept/Oct - half price Christmas cake, shortbread tons etc, so they get bought and put away too. Also napkins etc - though I bought loads for about 10p a pack after Christmas last year so not sure I'll need many!

[TondelayaDellaVentamiglia]

I made lots a few of teeny cardboard houses, they all fold and tuck together, to make a village, I had church and everything!

battery tea lights inside and they looked lovely on the mantle, I intended them for the window, but they looked a little lost.

I also made some large candle votives, with recycled nice jars and sheet music


loads of ideas for both on Pinterest

[landwhale]

Sorry forgot my new mumsnet password and was locked out!

Thanks for all the fab ideas! Def love the fresh greenery, will probably use battery operated candles as I made a fresh centrepiece a few years back and a candle burned low throughout the day and set it on fire. We were in the other room and my uncle only happened to notice it through the window as the top of the table was becoming alight so we were very lucky!

Just ordered 2 tins of chocolates and shed loads of custard with my Tesco shop so I'm well on my way! ???? (assuming they last until Christmas.....)

Thanks again!

[IdaShaggim]

I have a cheap shower rail from Ikea, and put it horizontally 2/3 the way up the window, wind festive ribbon around it, and dangle Swarovski snowflake crystals from it so they catch the sun and reflect millions of rainbows into the room. I love it, it's my favourite Xmas decoration. Crystals obvs not cheap but are used year after year, and everything else was cheap and easy.

[BiddyPop]

Lovely decoration ideas here already.

In terms of buying ahead:
Definitely things like toilet roll, kitchen roll, paper napkins, etc. Are you planning on feeding everyone using your own crockery - do you have enough? Or will you use paper/plastic disposable crockery for a few meals and throw everything into a bin bag rather than loads of washing up?

Extra dishwasher tablets, and washup liquid. A good idea for maybe 2-3 weeks before Christmas is a bottle of dishwasher cleaner, so that it's spotless (and not smelling) - I'm always amazed at the difference.

Otherwise, think ahead now for all the different meals etc that you will have extras for, and numbers. Not just the (turkey?) dinner, but any breakfasts, lunches, other dinners, afternoon teas/cake and coffee visits, supper before bed etc. And while some of those might not be regular in your house, will some of your guests expect it (like a Horlicks before bed) or people calling in at odd times.

Nice to get now, while budgets are ok, is to put away a few nice bottles of wine for the main dinner, get a nice jam/marmalade for the relaxed breakfasts over the week, put away a few spare jars of a favourite sauce and tins/packets of favourite soup to make a couple of dinners in a hurry. (Like a sauce that you love to mix with leftover turkey, or quickly cooked chicken and serve with rice/pasta etc).

And general stores that you'll want extra of.
Tea, coffee, sugar, hot chocolate/cocoa/Horlicks etc
Dried herbs and spices, and stock (tins, cubes, concentrate - whatever you like to use), gravy powder
Biscuits - I tend to NOT buy the big tins, but enough packets of nice biscuits that I can open and serve a nice mix whenever I need to but don't have something calling to me (leftovers - come and eat me), and also can decide exactly what ones I'd like. And if we don't use them all, as I only open maybe 3-4 at a time, the rest stay fresh for another time.
Mixers for alcohol and drinks for non-drinkers - cola, lemonade, tonic etc, and also consider things like fruit squash for children, nice elderflower or grape juice or something else for adults, plenty of sparkling water too for various meals.
And also the alcohol that you may want - if you need to stock up on things, make a list and then you can pick up different things as they are on offer over the autumn.

Nice sharing packs of crisps - too big for ordinary use but perfect for tipping into a bowl when visitors arrive. Or breadsticks, those little salty sticks, Bombay mix, etc. (I tend to put out things like carrot sticks, olives and bowls of pesto and hummus as well but those are last minute buys - unless you make your own hummus so you can stock up on tins of chickpeas now!).

Any sauces - mustard (we like grainy mustard on Boxing Day ham sandwiches), horseradish for beef, mint sauce for lamb etc.
Part baked breads and rolls - for fresh bread for relaxed breakfasts!

Candles, batteries, matches, firelighters, those sorts of odds and sods. And plenty of bin liners for bathroom/bedroom bins (to change between any guests), and also for the main kitchen bin.

OK, a slightly chaotic meander through my brain of things I try to remember, but I hope it helps...

[landwhale]

Omg Biddy you're a star! :)

I'm going to need a bigger shed..!! And possibly house...

Thank you so much, will add all of that to my ever expanding list!

Lovely idea Ida - not sure how it would turn out if I had a go, but with trying

[BiddyPop]

I just keep a large box under the spare bed, and build up the toilet roll mountain in the hot press. You'll hold a surprising amount in 1 box!!

[BathshebaDarkstone]

Wow can you buy all this stuff now?

[Gatekeeper]

stuff for the freezer? Aldi have a whole goose in for £7.99 down from £20.99 and lots of barbeque stuff like hickory smoked drumsticks etc all reduced to 99p a bag- nice for boxing day nibbles

[BathshebaDarkstone]

Why haven't I got Christmas emoticons on the mobile site?

[FireflyGirl]

Bathsheba, they're always here. MN just don't like to remind us during the year in case we get Christmas-emoticon-happy.

Just put a small 'f' in front of the word in the brackets, and it'll get a hat

[ThatsNotMyHouseItIsTooClean]

My tip would be to only buy household items now & put a few pounds aside each week & then do a big shop just before Xmas. Otherwise, you will buy a lot of it twice as you will either eat/drink it at some point in the next few months or use the wine & chocs for presents. Either way, you end up buying twice! To avoid eating the replacement goodies before Christmas, you hide them really well & them find them the following July!