In preparation for Christmas today I will……

[Beautifulsunflowers]

…….organise the freezer space and get if it stops raining I’ll go into town to WHSmiths to hopefully get the dark chocolate toblerone for ds’s stocking. I’m also going to make a few more Pom poms for my Pom Pom wreath.

Whst are you all doing today in preparation for the big day?

I've just made a half a dozen Christmas cards. Writing them out seems to be something I put off, however.

Took delivery of my favourite sausage stuffing and pigs in blankets earlier tonight with my Waitrose order. They will be frozen and I may or may not get extras / fresh ones next week or the week after (the day before Christmas Eve!)

We have tickets to see Home Alone tomorrow. Seems like ages since I bought them. It's at a tiny, independent cinema and we have a front row sofa to ourselves (DD and me)

😆 I’m glad I’m not totally crackers or if I am I have company. I have decided which of DH’s presents are “from our cats”
I must say that they didn’t offer to help me wrap it but then again how helpful would it be to have cats sitting on the wrapping paper and and chewing the sellotape? 😆

I bought a few things for the buffet yesterday as well as 2 little gifts for dp 🎁

I wrapped all of dp’s gifts to his family (minus the one that is due to be delivered tomorrow), as well as the ones for my friends and ds’s friend so all what’s left to wrap now is the gift that should arrive tomorrow and all of the ones I’ve got for dp and ds!!

We went to a Christmas special toddler class this morning and I booked us into a play area with afternoon tea and a Santa visit for next weekend 😋

Finally found vol au vents after searching high and low the last 3 weeks. I was getting a bit worried, they are a staple in our house over Christmas…

You should see them more frequently next week- all of the Christmas “presale” fresh food items should start filtering down into stores from this coming Monday.

I also love vol au vents but I never manage to keep them for Christmas!

Work has been busy the last few days so I haven’t got as much ticked off my list as I would like.

Tomorrow I am off so will try to get caught up with housework which has been put on the back burner due to me feeling unwell the last day or two. But I am planning on taking it easy tomorrow, watching a Christmas film in the evening etc.

Monday-

• housework that doesn’t get done on Sunday gets finished
• Christmas cards written
• finally finish Christmas gift shopping- only a few things left to get so should be able to sort it fairly easily

For the rest of the week I need to start wrapping presents in the evenings. I will feel so much more relaxed if I know the vast majority are wrapped and ready to go. I will set aside toys that need assembled for Christmas Day and tackle them next weekend I think, too.

I was going to leave them until the following week but I know what will end up happening is I’ll end up not doing them at the start of the week, then be tired from work (my job is absolutely mental in the run up to Christmas) and before I know it, it’s Christmas Eve and I have them to assemble then. Which is absolutely not happening this year (never forget the year of building toys/wrapping until 5am in the morning of Christmas Day…)

It’s so weird, I felt like I had loads of time left but it’s actually only 2 weeks now and I’m panicking a little bit!

Today I'm making space in the freezer and the kitchen cupboards.
DH and dd are currently making a gingerbread house. I need to catch up on housework today, I think this year's the most organised I've ever been

Cards were posted yesterday and a couple of gifts dropped off.

Today we are doing the tree

Today is the day we'll put the decorations up!

We've brought the tree in (bought it the other day, it's been outside in a bucket) and I'll put the lights on today and maybe a few baubles too. Will finish it tomorrow. Need to write the remainder of my cards which I'll post tomorrow.

The Christmas cake is in the oven. Whew.

Today I have made gingerbread dough for the freezer, and some into biscuits which DD decorated on the way to her mouth.
I’ve made a chestnut, cranberry and mushroom stuffed butternut squash for dinner, no special occasion just fancied it!

Meal planned for the week from freezer food to make room. Found a mince & onion pie, dead chuffed.

Will feed the cakes later.

Tomorrow wrap some of DHs gifts in my lunch break if I get one.

Over the weekend :
Shopping for DD presents (with DD)
Made lasagne (x3 ate one , froze 2 )
Made Brownies ( freezer)
Made 8x individual Sticky Toffee Puddings ( 7 in the freezer , one taste tested by DD)
Put up decorations .

Presents are wrapped ✅

I have put up all our Christmas trees this weekend. I've also been and bought all the soft drinks for the Christmas period including SIL's Christmas party.

Did two batches of Y puddings for freezing but both lots sank. Don't usually have but relation eating with us for the first time always has them. Never mind they taste ok.

Trees are up. Illuminated star light on the outside of the house is up. We're doing well considering the house move!

Hooray. Last present arrived today. No more presents to buy or wait for. I can’t wrap this one just yet but all the others are done.

Now to think about food but we don’t buy loads. I see no good reason to stuff ourselves silly because it’s Christmas.
My husband is tee-total and I am allergic so that’s one expensive removed. However I used to enjoy a rum and Diet Coke (allergy began in my 30’s) I have see some non-alcoholic rum. I think I will give it a try.

Need to nip out to the shops later and get a pack of string lights for the shelves in our sunroom. Living room is fully decked out in decorations but sunroom looks a bit sparse in comparison. It’s where we spend a lot of our evenings having drinks so it definitely needs something added to it.

Also need to get batteries- just noticed today we’ve ran out of AA and only have a few AAA. Will double check toys as I start wrapping at the end of the week incase there’s any outliers that need weird sized batteries.

Also might pick up a few candles to pop around the house. We have an electric diffuser in the living room which is lovely, but could do with a few scents in other places.

I also need to sort out the lights outside electric cable situation- we put them up yesterday but it started lashing down just as we went to connect everything, so we had to abandon ship as to avoid water getting into the sockets.

Shouldn’t take long (although I would have done this sooner but for some reason our neighbours opposite always have to come out of their house every single time (without fail) we do something in the front garden, then proceed to sit in their car with the engine running for about 20 minutes).

No idea if it’s coincidence or just them being a bit rare, but it puts me off if I know someone’s looking as I try to do something.

Bought Christmas crackers today because the ones that were left from last year and had been stored in the loft came out far tattier and sad looking than I remembered.

Dealt with the birthdays that are dotted around Christmas today.

I have written 71 Christmas cards - all the ones that need posting, so they are ready to go. I need to do the ones for the neighbours, but that is a problem for another day.

I need to find the energy from somewhere to go and make the stuffing for the goose, so we can freeze it, and get the stock for the gravy started in the slow cooker - but I don't want to!!

We are away from Thursday to Monday night, visiting family, so I do need to get these things done before we go away.

Shamed by my neighbours, who have put up a gorgeous light display, into putting up some lights and garlands, lighting a couple of Christmas Smell candles and wrapping a few more presents.
I've got that problem where I've got a couple of the kids coming over separately before Christmas to 'help' me with wrapping up. Obviously I don't want them wrapping their own presents, and one or two of the presents for others overlap with theirs, so I don't want them to help wrap those presents either. So I'm desperately trying to remember who has what and who can be allowed to wrap which other presents. Plus I had a couple of birthday presents to wrap and I need to sort out delivery for those too.

Managed to get all school teacher gifts etc bought this evening. Will try and get those wrapped and cards written for Friday, so I can drop them in.

Also got some lights for the sunroom and annoyingly the battery selection in Asda was absolutely dire. Got a packet of AAs but will order larger packs on Amazon tonight.

Didn’t go for candles in the end as the shops I was in didn’t have any I liked the smell of. Will try again when I’m not shopping in our local town.

Also picked up a few bottles of booze while I was out- Baileys (obviously) and a whiskey. Partner picked up several bottles of wine earlier and I know I’m getting gifted a bottle of gin so I don’t think we need much else in other than a pack of beers which I’ll get another time.

I go between feeling really organised and really unorganised every day. I think by the time this weekend hits I will spiral into a stressed out mess as I always do!

Just ordered a bottle of zero alcohol Captain Morgan’s. Now I can have a rum and Diet Coke without it setting off an allergic reaction or interfering with my medication. I will open it when we have a take away on the 23rd.