Any homemade Christmas presents I should think about making 12 months in advance?

[yellowflowers]

Thought I would start early...

Anything that tastes better matured that will keep until next Christmas? Or that I should make this summer?

Wow! You're keen!

I'm going to try a Xmas pudding in a couple of weeks - according to one of my grandma's old friends it is best to make it a year in advance!

I'm also going to look for any sort of Xmas fabric and try to do some Flubba-inspired door stops - I quite fancy making them look like gingerbread houses.

Katie allsop also had some nice ideas for beaded tassels, so I may also give these a go way in advance.

I hope that by starting mega early this year i won't face the last minute panic of a couple of weeks ago.....well, that's the theory, anyway!

I'm too christmassed out today to post any useful suggestion but last year I was frantically trying to finish stuff on time and vowed to start much earlier in 2011. I did and have to say it really made a big difference - I really enjoyed making with that creative glow but without the sense of panic! I'll be back with a more useful suggestion soon!

I'm going to make Xmas pudding next month. There'll be no pressure and it keeps for at least a year in a cool place. If its as easy as I think it will be, I shall make more I have been so bloody stressed out by the last Christmas that I have vowed, Never Again.

Sloe Gin. Divine the longer you leave it.

I am going to start knitting a jumper for DH soon also a poem in cross stitch for DD.

Are you making up the cross stitch poem or working from a pattern? I'm still working on dd's name and dob that I bought after her birth. She's just turned 1. My aim is to have it done by time she's 2.

Will last year's Christmas gift of slow gin still be okay to drink? Not opened it