so its only....

[RabidCarrot]

364 days till Christmas

347

Down to a poisettier {sp}

No snow today, but it was bloody cold. I don't think fog lifted all day.

Did anyone else get snow?

No snow in Darkest Essex

Still burning my Yankee Candle Sparkling Cinnamon though

Snow would be hell for me at the moment so I'm glad we haven't had any so far!

I have now tried chocolate truffles, peanut butter chocolate ball things, chocolate pretzels, and peppermint bark. All quite tasty but not lovely enough (appearance wise) for presents, so I need to practise more :o. I still have 5 tubes of various writing icing to use up so I should really make biscuits but I am so terrible at baking! DH is a coeliac too.

Oh and I really need to buy storage for our decorations. All our stuff is just bunged in boxes under the table, but I really want to have a proper sort through to get rid of some rubbish decorations and pack the nice stuff safely.

My old tree, which my parents bought for my 2nd Xmas in 1987, has been in my parents' attic for a few years now, but since they are moving out (separately) soon they don't want it any more. It is in many pieces and I want to store it properly now. A lot of the boxes my parents brought over had damp/mould etc which is why I'm desperate to Do It Right.

All of which means I get to indulge my addiction to Really Useful Boxes! :o

fuzz how are you and DH health wise now? Hope everything is getting better x

I really fancy peppermint bark - is it fairly easy to make?

346

Aww thanks buzz :) DH is getting there and is now looking for work. I have been officially dxd with ME/CFS now, so trying to work out if I can continue in my job (unlikely really) or I might go part time or something. Xmas was lovely though in spite of all the stress! :)

Peppermint bark was an MN idea - basically just melted chocolate, poured it onto a tin lid covered in cling film, and sprinkled crushed candy canes onto it. I did milk, then dark, then white and it was quite nice. Once it's set you just break it into shards.

I'd like to try Florentines too and fudge perhaps.

Fuzz, banana/fruit boxes make fantastic storage boxes as they stack and are free, this is what I have, all the decorations are put in separate boxes and labelled according to colour then stacked, every November we then decide what colours we are using and bring down the relevant boxes

Please note I am very anal

Ah we used to have those boxes when I was young! :o

Won't do the job in our house/attic though, we have damp/mould issues so nothing is going in the attic without being reasonably well sealed.

And anyway, I love Really Useful Boxes, so nothing else will do

fuzz great news about dh, not so good about your diagnosis - I hope you get something sorted work wise.

The pepper mint bark sounds yummy, but I have to admit that I would probably eat the lot myself! I love mint in chocolate.

I'm just back from mil's, and she has told me that I'm getting her Xmas tree. I have a scabby tenner job from Asda we bought when skint, she has a lovely thick gorgeous one I've been after for ages. She told me tonight that she's bought herself a wire one , so I can have hers.

It's great as I planned on loosing our current tree anyway!

Good news about the tree! I am so happy to have mine here now. I always decorated it myself as a child since my parents hated Xmas and I feel very attached to it, as well as several of the decorations. Here's hoping it lasts another 25 years! :) I think we need to sort through all the lights though - we used a set that had obviously been bought in a sale years ago but never used. They are lovely but only 80 lights which isn't enough for a 7ft tree.

We'd also been making do for the last few years with an Asda smart price tree and a huge white one we found in our attic!

What is a wire tree though? Is it like just the branches with no leaves or something?

345

snow

Not FAIR!! Only wet miserable weather here....(it was bitterly cold all day yesterday, but warmed up to a balmy 6 degrees this morning and dull, damp misery).

I still have the 5 foot tree I got in Primark when we got our first house - we use it the years that we are travelling (I like a real tree if we are here for Christmas itself). But I'd like to get a better fake. Maybe next year's sales....after I show DH how bad the fake looks again (as we are travelling next year, we've decided).

I put away the last Christmas cup yesterday, and DH got "Arthur Christmas" out for DD from rental place, on condition that that was the end of Christmas in our house with NO Christmas to be seen or mentioned for the next 10 months!! (Glared at BOTH DD and I as he said it!!).

That's ok, I will put it all out of his view/hearing until late October (late enough in my mind) but book things like Santa train when they come out (July) and start my buying as well before that. But if he wants it that late then HE will have to do the buying for his family!!

344

I finished boxing all my decs up today. I've put all the Christmas cards I got into a separate 'to do' box in the cupboard downstairs, and sometime in the next 2 or 3 weeks I'll cut present labels out, punch a hole in each corner and thread some ribbon through, all ready for labelling presents in November. It always takes ages to cut the labels out, as I do shapes like Christmas trees, holly leaves etc. The fancier the better IMO. I do like it all to drag out for as long as possible

I have bought some more cards and bits - Boots have packs of their '30 for school class + card for teacher' cards on half price so got those for 2.50!

Still need to pack the decs up. Christmas mugs still in use. DH (who tolerates my Christmas fixation well without being of that mind himself) said he rather liked them so going to keep them in use for a bit longer. It is such a dreary January at the moment, I need the lift.

Today (wednesday) I shall pootle off down to Boots and peruse their sale (apparently 75% off some items). It will most likely be Christmas gift set type things.
But I might get some nail polishes for DD and see if there's any bargains.

343

I got more cards from Boots today in the 75% off deal - in total 70 cards cost me £2.78. I usually try and get cards from charity shops so the profits get to them directly but money is much tighter for us now and will be for at least another year, so I decided to go this route with it.

70isaLimit There was lots of frenzied riffling through beauty sets when I was there, so not sure how much is left but hope you got some decent stuff.

Are there any other shops still selling off Christmas stuff?

342

I got a Soap&Glory lipstick set for £3 (was £12).
There were no boxed sets that they had before christmas (but loads of them were 50% off previously)
It was a small branch of Boots but at about 9.15am, there was nothing apart from cards and a couple of beauty bag sets
Not to be obviously.

I bought some more wrapping paper this morning on the way to work at a different library... and then left said wrapping paper in said different library

Wouldn't it be nice if we had another late winter festival to look forward to. It's so grim this time of year. It's this that would tempt me to get into full-on Catholicism or Paganism or something (depending on who had the better festivals). I do think it's sad there used to be more of a rhythm to life, with feast days and things to mark, and we've lost that. We pile all our feelings about those things onto one festival really.

Well MadBusLady in eight days time you can release your inner Rabbie Burns and have a good old Burns Night

Haggis, neeps, mashed carrots, tatties
Whiskey
Some strange pudding (Athol Brose) made with cream, raspberries, toasted oats and whiskey (see a theme here)

Lots of speeches and Rabs Yer Uncle