Baby steps leaving footprints in the Winter snow

[roastparsnipsandbrusselsprouts]

Morning all, DS is fit to burst with excitement today!
DD doesn't really understand it all yet but I think she will be excited tomorrow.

Today I need to:
Get dressed
get DD dressed (DS does himself)
clean and tidy kitchen
tidy dining room and living room
put up stockings for DC
clean dining room table
find Christmassy mats (for table)
Do any other Christmas stuff.
Tidy away toys from downstairs (at bedtime) to make space for presents.
Do some washing

Good point, BlackCat - must check ours.

Thank you BlackCat! Excellent reminder.

Ds is going to explode sometime soon. I can't imagine him making it through the day at this level of mania. Eeeek!

Dh and dd have already had a row. Dd hit ds who was probably being annoying but still. Now dd is blaming Dh for her getting into trouble. I am hiding with my saying nothing for now.

We have done all the straggling bits of wrapping so that is one thing ticked off the list.

Dh is currently making an almighty mess of the kitchen so I might do the cake on the kitchen table. The dcs are doing the sugarpaste figures for the top which is a great excuse for them being dodgy so that it looks cute and home made. I might let them do the actual icing too for the same reasons

Have fun today everyone!

Ooh well done black, I thought of that in bed last night, but had forgotten!

Brownies & lunch made. Am a bit worried about how long it's going to take me to make cheesecake this afternoon as the hand blender struggled to beat some eggs & sugar this morning!

Good luck bessie.

I have tried a new recipe for mince pies, rolling the mincemeat in puff pastry. I have tried it out this morning but I am not convinced - they look a bit ropey to me

I have some normal pies waiting to go in the oven instead.

I have also iced the Christmas cake and the dcs have decorated it with sugarpaste figures. That kept them occupied for a while and they seemed to enjoy it.

That is nearly 3 things off the list.

Dh has taken the dog out for a long run so hopefully he will be a bit better humoured when he comes back.

I am having another and a wee breather before I start the next round of jobs.

How are the rest of you getting on?

I take it back. They look pretty ropey but they taste absolutely delicious. YUMMY!

I will look it up again and link to the recipe.

here

Mine didn't look quite as tasty as the ones in the picture but they tasted fab.

I am going to try them again as everyone has already eaten the ones I made and not roll out the ready roll pastry any more this time and put them in a slightly hotter oven.

Any excuse.

I have another tray of normal pies waiting to go in and another 6 pies waiting for a tray. That should be enough

They look yum, parsnips.

Did my jars - they look nice. They'd be better with ribbon round the top but I don't have any the right colour so have rubber bands which don't actually look too bad. I'm dithering about whether to try to get some ribbon later or not (will mean a mad sweat if I do).

2 parcels wrapped. I've located DH's presents - phew.

DH has wrapped DS's parcels and got the sprouts for me.

I took DS for a walk so hopefully that'll keep him going for today.

Off to slice & re-cook my biscotti while DS sleeps.

I'm not making much progress here yet but I think I will do most of it from tea time onwards.

I think I have reached the "Fed up with Christmas - can't wait for the day to be here now" stage.
I feel completely exhausted- emotionally!
DH is doing the dinner tonight to give me a break before the big day.

I don't want to sound miserable but it's just there is such a build up before Christmas day that it wears me out!

The kids will love the day and I am looking forward to the nice dinner.
I feel like I can't cope with the social side of it all right now.
We have been invited to friends in the evening but I think I want to stay home.

How are you all?

Hope you feel a bit more rested now, BlackCat.

I'm sitting down for a few minutes after putting DS to bed.

I found some nice tinsel pipe cleaners to put round my jam jars - they look good.

I've done some wrapping and some laundry.

Still to do tonight:
Wrap a couple more presents
Finish tidying kitchen
Put away dry washing
Organise tomorrow's food

BlackCat you will be alright in the morning. It is all a bit too much today.

Our proper Christmas dinner tonight went well. Both dcs refused to eat the token sprout on their plates but strangely managed the roast parsnips and carrots (roasted with a touch of maple syrup) and the playoff of sprout versus broccoli meant the broccoli went down!

We have been to a couple of friends with gifts and the kids church service in the church we got married in. Ds was not impressed but dd liked it.

We have also hung up stockings, tracked Santa on Norad one last time and read the Grinch before bed.

Baking is all done, table is set for nice breakfast, dishwasher is on, dh is cooling the custard for his trifle... what else do I need to do?

Santa still has to come and we need to put our gifts for the dcs under the tree. We also have a pile of stuff under the loft hatch waiting to go up into the loft and clean sheets waiting to go on my bed.

BTW I had another go at the mince pie roll up things. This time I just took the pastry out of the packet, laid it on worktop dusted with sugar, spread it with mincemeat, sprinkled it with ground almond, rolled it up so it was still as long as the long side, chilled it, sliced it, flattened each slice, sprinkled it with flaked almonds, baked it and dusted it with icing sugar. Much easier, smaller and equally tasty.

Am feeling a little better now. The DC are both asleep in bed. They have been bouncing off the walls all day and I think it just got a bit much for me earlier.
Can't blame them though, Christmas is very exciting when you are a kid!
We also have been tracking Father Christmas on Norad too.

I hope everyone has a good sleep tonight.
and
Have a lovely day tomorrow!

I think we've got everything done. Brownies, cheesecake & innards to Wellington made, house is fairly tidy (we have a few things we'll have to hide upstairs, but otherwise good enough).

We took the DDs to the church service, Grandad was taking the service (he's not a vicar or anything, just helps out), so that was quite amusing for DD1, we sat on the back row and tried to put him off waved alot!

On the way home we stopped to look at some houses with ridiculous light displays on them. I know they put a charity pot outside, but couldn't they just donate the extra money they must spend on their elec bill? ba humbug

DD1 has sprinkled her reindeer dust outside & left a mince pie and glass of milk out for Santa (apparently he doesn't like G&T) and gone to bed in her new sparkly Peppa Pig PJs very excited! All I have to do now is get the little one back to sleep (still snotty) and I can goto bed!

Hope you all have a wonderful day tomorrow! xx

Well, our plans have all changed. DH's grandma is ill (thankfully nothing serious) so we can't go to hers tomorrow as planned. The PILs are also ill so they couldn't go anyway. So we have the day by ourselves, which was what we'd been wishing we'd arranged.

We'll go to church in the morning and have our Christmas dinner in the evening.

I've wrapped all the presents for tomorrow. I've some to do yet for Boxing Day / afterwards, but DS can 'help' me tomorrow (if he can be prised away from the new train set, that is).

I keep forgetting but I bought DH some nice cheese and I can't find it. It's not in the fridge. I expect it'll turn up sooner or later - when the smell starts.

Happy Christmas for tomorrow everyone.

Is it in the garage angel? That's where all our Xmas food that won't fit in the fridge is!

No, we don't have one, but it could be in the car - good point. I'd best look tomorrow - we've only had it 6 months and DH won't be happy if he has to commute in a smelly vehicle once term starts again.

SANTA HAS BEEN

And he has left a lot of crumbs.

Has Santa not heard of flylady?

Having a wee nightcap and then we are off to bed.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Just got back into bed after sorting DD2. DH is snoring next to me, I'm wondering if I should check if Santa's been...

Right, Santa has now eaten his mince pie & drunk his milk (he has also left alot of crumbs here ) It looks like he decided not to risk waking them & left their stockings outside their bedroom doors!

Sleep now Zzzzzzz

Hope you've all had a good day. We have.

I found the missing cheese - lurking at the bottom of the nappy bag.

We're off to DH's uncle & aunt tomorrow afternoon. In the morning I need to pack up some food for DS, wrap a couple of presents, take DS out for a walk.

I am just playing on MN now, may have had a little too much wine but I don't do it often!

Glad to hear you've had too much wine good days! We did too, although being up with DD2 until 230 didn't help, and she's just woken up again and tomorrow I have to endure we are spending the day at the ILs. I think we will have to have the Xmas playlist on in the car in the morning to get us in the mood!