Christmas Cards

Today I am taking part in a Christmas homemade-handmade bloggie carnival as hosted by Antique Mommy. I've never taken part in a carnival before, but it's a good idea as it gets a lot of people blogging on the same topic and all the posts can be found in one place. (of course, that only works if everyone joins in!!)

Anyway, I have been making what feels like hundreds of Christmas cards for an upcoming craft fair where I work and here is a selection of the range that I shall be selling!

As I couldn't possibly describe how to make each and every one as I'd be here all day, there is one that I want to focus on though as I rather liked this one. Oh, I like them all, but this one is relatively simple yet very effective.

1) Grab yourself a card blank

2) Lightly draw a circle in the top two thirds of the card

3) Stamp a greeting in the middle

4) Punch out several shapes from different coloured paper. I've gone for a variety of green paper and have used my star punch, but you could use a simple round punch, or perhaps jazz it up at bit with a snowflake punch?

5) Using glue and foam pads simply layer the punched out shapes around the circle so that some lie flat against the paper and some stand out from the circle.

6) Finally, tie yourself a ribbon, red works well with green! But it will depend on your tastes and what colours you have already chosen.

And there you have it, a little card that is quite easy to make and you could sit down of an evening and make a few of these!! Nothing too time consuming or requiring lots of colouring in or embossing, and yet, don't you think that it looks pretty?!

And by the way, some crazy woman is giving away a craft stamp every day for the rest of November!! So, go and check out Bootiful Stampz if you want to be in with a chance of winning a stamp for your cards!

Incidentally, my latest ICLW comments are....

Life with the Georgia Reiniches
An Equation of Hope
It is Tuesday, Right?
Dreams come True Sometimes
That's My Answer
Bloorb
Loving Thee....and More
Along Life's Little Journey
Ordinary Exultations
Breeder Beware
Inconceivable
Blogfight
Off my Mind, but from my Heart
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Pampers

It's too soon!

As much as I am a fan of all things Christmas, I do get irritated when mince pies start appearing in the shops round about the end of August, so you might be able to imagine what I thought when I discovered that there is a town in the UK that has put up their Christmas decorations already!!

The BBC website has a nice little clip to watch, and it would appear that the reason is less to do with attracting shoppers to the town and more to do with the fact that the decorations are put up by volunteers who work during the week and can only give their time on Sundays, which means that they actually have less time to install the decorations before the big switch on at the end of November.

Which means that I am a bit torn here as I am pleased to see that there are people willing to give their time for the local community, but how long does it take to put some decorations up!? Surely they had more time than the they thought they had, I mean does it really take two month's worth of Sundays to test and put up all the lights?

I do think that October 15th is far too early for decorations to go up, even if they are not actually turned on until the end of November. Don't you think that the pleasure of seeing the lights will have dimmed (ha ha - pun unintended!) by the time it comes to turn them on as people will have become thoroughly used to seeing them?

Secret Ornament Swap!

Some people come up with the best ideas!! And this one is perfect for a Christmas-aholic like me! MsCellania had a post all about an idea that Julie had over at Abbilyeverafter.

To wit - last year Julie had this idea of getting people involved in a secret Christmas ornament swap and she had thirtyeight swappers involved. Of course, it would have been thirtynine if I'd known about last year, but that's beside the point!

She's brave enough to offer up her time to arrange the same event this year and this time I know all about it!! So, I have signed up to send a newly-purchased ornament to someone that doesn't know what she'll (let's face it, I doubt that any men would sign up to this!) be getting in the way of Christmas ornaments.

The ornaments have to be in the post by the 1st December so it gives me a perfect excuse to do a bit of early shopping for Christmas decorations. (one can never have too many!!). The deadline for signing up to get a mystery ornament is the 31st October, so if you fancy having a new ornament this year, go visit Abbilyeverafter and read the instructions!

Tom and Emily

I have been rummaging around my Christmas photos and finally sent some of them to those that were there (better later than never!) and I found this one of my nephew and niece!

They look so peaceful just sat there on the floor playing with their toys, I think that at one point Tom was playing with Emily's toys and vice versa!

And here is a good photo - this one shows Tom and Emily with the Christmas presents that I gave them - Emily loved her new cardigan and Tom had fun with his new rollerskates (I hope that he hasn't done himself an injury yet!!)

Secret Santa

hmmmmmm, I am still waiting for my LibraryThing Secret Santa book. I was expecting it to be either at home or with my neighbours when I got home last night, but no, much to my disappointment there wasn't even a delivery card saying that they would try again later!

So where it is...I do not quite know, but I am still waiting!! I expect that the courier service being used may well have backlogs or simply closed for Christmas - who knows!!

If you have a look on the LibraryThing website in the Talk section, there is clear evidence of other people receiving their books and being very happy with them. In fact, I have had a nice message from my Secret Santa person saying that she had not read the two books that I chose for her and she is very pleased and very thankful - so that was nice to know! BUT I still want my book!!! ;-)

Christmas Day!!

Well, that was it!! Today is now practically over, my niece is in bed and my nephew is just about to go to bed!!

We have all had a very good day, Mum, Dad, Matt and I stayed at a local Bed and Breakfast as there really isn't enough room at the house. It is a very nice B&B, so nice that for breakfast we also had Christmas crackers and presents!! How thoughtful of them!

Anyway, by the time we got to Andy's house, my nephew was just about climbing the walls as he wanted to begin opening the presents and he had been told that he couldn't until we had arrived!!

There have been presents and fun aplenty today Everybody seems to have had the presents that they would like! Andy has been deep into the book that I gave him - An utterly impartial history of Britain by John O'Farrell and he is now playing his Godfather computer game!! Mum is reading her cookbook for Grannies by Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall, Matt is half asleep on the sofa as he has not been feeling too good since yesterday. :-( But he did get a few DVDs that he wanted, such as the boxset of Futurama!

I certainly have had some lovely presents - a lovely ZPM washbag for my trip to Australia, an amber necklace, and a gorgeous wooden jewellery box - I am certainly looking forward to sorting out my jewellery now as it badly needs doing!! Andy and Marielle definitely struck inspiration there as I have been wanting one for a while!!

I hope you have all been as successful and have had a lovely day!

By the way....

...if you want to find out where Santa has got to...you can track him via the NORAD website!!

Last time I checked he was in Australia!!

In anycase I am now off to Cambridge for my Christmas!!

Am I ready?

I think that I am now ready for Christmas, although it was touch and go this morning when I had a few things to finish off before going to work!! That's what comes of going to London two days before Christmas, but never mind!!

I hope that I have packed everything I need for Christmas in Cambridge! At the very least, the presents are in the car, so I need not worry about that! I may need to do a bit of repair when I arrive this evening as I think that the wrapping has torn on one of the presents.

This morning was just crazy - I even made up some chocolate butter cream icing to put in a pot so that I could ice the yule log this evening as I didn't know what would be available in Marielle's kitchen! It is certainly cold enough outside that the icing should be ok - I will probably taste it just to make sure!! ;-)

Oh well, if I have forgotten anything, it will just have to remain forgotten! I would say that at least I have my wallet, but there will be very few shops open tomorrow if I have forgotten anything drastic! But I don't think that I have, it is just that I always feel this way when I am standing in the doorway to my house and rapidly go over everything in my mind - undies - check, socks - check, jeans - check, jumpers - check, and so it goes on!!!!

Anyway, I shall be leaving at 3pm this afternoon and with a quick stop on the way drop off a present for some friends, I should hopefully be in Cambridge by 7pm at the latest all ready to start Christmas!!

Merry Christmas to you all!

Thirty Christmas questions - part three!

Well, it is now Christmas Eve and here are the final set of questions that make up my set of Christmas questions!

21. Stockings before or after presents?
What a question - first thing in the morning before anything else of course!

22. Go to someone else's house or they come to you?
Well, I always go to someone else's house because I usually spend Christmas at my parents.

23. What is your favourite holiday smell?
I always associate cinnamon with Christmas, but I don't think that I have a particularly favourite fragrance that brings to mind the holiday.

24. Can you name all the reindeer?
Erm......Rudolph, Blitzen, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Cupid, Comet, Vixen - no, not without reverting the internet! And the rest of them are...well, to my surprise I have only missed out Donner according to Wikipedia!! (mind you, Rudolph, isn't actually one of the original reindeer as mentioned in The night before Christmas)

25. Do you bake biscuits?
Not specifically for Christmas, no.

26. Do you go caroling?
No, not in the sense that this question means anyway as I don't go caroling from door-to-door, but will go to a carol concert and join in the singing - very quietly I might add!!

27. Do you drive around and look at the Christmas lights?
No, not on purpose anyway, but I can see them on the way home from work!

28. Favourite Christmas tradition?
Nope, can't think of a favourite, I just enjoy the whole thing from start to finish!

29. What is your favourite Christmas memory?
I mentioned earlier that my most enduring Christmas memory (see my meme) is one of feeling the stocking lie on my feet first thing in the morning, but I would not say that this is my favourite. I can't actually pick out a favourite as I just love the whole thing!!

30. Christmas wish for this year?
Well, I don't know, I could be traditional and go for Peace on Earth!

And that's it, my Thirty Christmas Questions! I hope you enjoyed them!

Little Christmas Eve

I came across the above phrase the other day when I was reading The Christmas Mystery by Jostein Gaarder, it was what one of the characters called the day before Christmas Eve and I thought that it was rather nice!

Well, today is the Little Christmas Eve and I have just come back from London!! Ann, Trish and I had the day in London - we specifically went so that we could go to the Royal Albert Hall to see Carols by Candlelight - performance started at 4:30pm.

However, the cheapest train that we could find was at 10:41am, but that was ok cos we decided that we would go to London and have lunch and perhaps visit Harrods or something before going on to the Royal Albert Hall.

Well, we got to London ok, although I had a moments panic when I realised just how frozen my car was when I left the house - it was doubly frozen - apparently we'd had rain in the middle of the night and it was really quite difficult to scrape off the side windows, but like I have said before - thank goodness for heated windscreens!! (mind you, the frost did actually look quite pretty!!)

We got to London and after a moments indecision we decided to go and find lunch in Harrods (!). While I am sure that most of you know that Harrods takes up a whole block, did you also know that there are umpteen restaurants!! At least one on each floor, with, I think, four on the top floor!! Anyway, we felt that we weren't posh enough for the Dress Circle restaurant, so we walked up to the fourth floor and hunted down Mo's Diner.

And I really do mean "hunted down" - it was surprisingly difficult to find!! We managed to find it in the end though after getting a few directions!! And it was exactly what you might expect of an American diner! I had a hotdog with chips and a vanilla milkshake, Trish had a spicy chicken wrap and Ann had soup and potato wedges - it was very nice indeed.

By the time we finished lunch it was getting on for two o'clock, so we decided to wander around Harrods pretending to be swanky buyers!! ;-) I did actually get a couple of books and some chocolates, while Ann and Trish treated themselves to a pastry!

Anyway, we eventually had to leave to get to the Royal Albert Hall - it was only a short walk down the road, so that was ok. We got there in plenty of time for a cup of tea and then we settled down for an evening of carols!

I had never been in the Royal Albert Hall before, so that was quite something. It was odd, it looks both bigger and smaller than it does on the television - quite bizarre! In any case, we all enjoyed the music and joined in where audience participation was called for!!!

The train journey home was just as uneventful as the one in the morning and I dropped Ann and Trish off at home before heading home myself, so now I have fed the cat and am off to bed!!

Dinner party!

Well, last night was the dinner party night! I cooked dinner for six people which includes my library staff and me! Fortunately, everyone was very patient as I vastly underestimated how long it would take me to prepare dinner!!

I had chosen Jamie Oliver's Chicken Breasts In A Bag recipe, mainly because it was simple - just throw a load of stuff into a foil bag and chuck it in the oven. Well, that was the theory anyway - it was not quite so simple!

The trouble was that the preparation was actually quite fiddly, for instance I had to do things like peel and slice two cloves of garlic, fold and create the foil bag, chop the 9oz of mushrooms, cook the pototoes and slice them, and then after all that, I had to carefully stuff the bag! (I had to make three bags too as each bag contained two chicken breasts, so for six people....)

In the end, instead of eating at 7:30 as I had planned (the invite was 7pm for 7:30pm!) we eventually sat down to eat at 8:30pm - whoops! Fortunately everybody alreadys knows everybody and so was quite happy to open the drinks and sit down to chat in the lounge.

The meal itself was very nice - the wine component was a bit too strong and the garlic came through quite strongly, but it was very nice - three plates were almost totally cleared and the other three less so, so I think that I can call that a success!!

Pudding was just as successful - I had a raspberry meringue and a chocolate roulade (not made from scratch thankfully!) - thanks to Ann for whipping the cream and assembling the roulade! ;-)

After dinner we did the Secret Santa thing - all the presents were very nice - let me tell you them in the order that they were opened - Ann had a little pot of handcream and a manicure kit, Judith had a little red umbrella for her handbag, Nicola had a lovely set of minature jams, Bridget had a bag of handlotions and stuff, Trish had a new mug, and I had a drawstring travel washbag (just right for my trip to Australia!!) and I think that everybody was happy!

Nice people

Christmas always brings out the nice people!! In the library, we get to see those generous people who bring us some goodies to say thank you for all the work that have done for them over the year.

This year, we have had a box of biscuits from a Consultant, a box of chocolates from a Modern Matron (new, revamped NHS term!!) and another box of biscuits from a Sister; so we are feeling most appreciated here in the library!

Of course, it works both ways, we have given some chocolates to the lady who brings and collects our post every day, a box of biscuits to the IT department...after all, they are the ones that keep our computers going and put up with us when we telephone with yet another computer problem!!

The library notice board behind the duty desk is now covered in Christmas cards or posters printed out from emails sent from libraries around the region - it is looking very Christmassy!

Thirty Christmas questions - part two!

Here we go - part two of those questions that I started yesterday!!

11. Do you decorate the outside of your house?
No, but I love seeing what other people have done!

12. What is your favourite food at Christmas?
I don't think that I really have an absolute favourite, but I would be disappointed if sausages wrapped in bacon did not make an appearance or if the sausage rolls ran out!! ;-)

13. Have you started your Christmas shopping?
I should think so given that there are only a few days left!!

14. Have you finished your Christmas shopping?
Present-wise yes, but I am sure that I have a few other bits and pieces to get!

15. What's your favourite Christmas song?
Well, a few weeks ago, I said "We three kings of Orient", But it does depend on what I have in my car when you ask the question, and at the moment my favourite is "The Holly and the Ivy"!

16. Have you ever kissed under mistletoe?
Unfortunately no - any volunteers?!? ;-)

17. How early do you wake up on Christmas?
Not as early as I used to that's for sure! I think that 8am sounds about right.

18. Do you put up your own Christmas tree?
But of course!

19. Do you get a fake or real Christmas tree?
A fake one that I have had for a few years now, I would love to have a real tree, but it just seems a little too much bother!

20. Do you use homemade or store-bought ornaments?
Both, although the only homemade ones are white knitted (possibly crocheted) angels that were made by my Nana and I treasure them.

So endeth part two!

Thirty Christmas questions - part one!

I found this on the internet the other day, and while it isn't a meme, it looked like fun and was all about Christmas, so I thought that I'd answer the questions!! Fortunately I have chosen not to answer them all at once as thirty questions (plus assorted answers!) would make for a very very long post!!! I really wouldn't want to bore you too much before Christmas!!

1. Snow or no snow?
I love snow and would love to have a white Christmas one day!

2. Eggnog/hot chocolate/cider?
Cider? Do people offer cider as a particularly Christmassy drink? Have never had eggnog although I did have an eggnog flavoured latte (Starbucks!) the other day and didn't think much of it, so by elimination and utter personal choice it would have to be hot chocolate!

3. Naughty or nice?
Oh, nice of course!

4. Ham or Turkey?
Turkey - in particular I seem to just love Turkey gravy!

5. Star or angel?
I don't really have a preference for either, but do have an angel on my tree.

6. Blinking lights or still lights?
Still - they are more soothing.

7. White lights or coloured lights?
Either - I actually have both on my tree!

8. Give or receive?
Would have to say both!! I love to find the right present , but I also love getting presents!! (who doesn't?)

9. Favourite Christmas film?
It seems to change every year, but I like Santa Clause: the movie; Christmas Carol (in all variations!)

10. Do you like candy canes?
Erm - sort of - I have pretty glass ones that hang off my tree, but I don't think that I would buy them as sweeties.

So, there you go and it's a good job that these questions were not either/or so I could choose both!! Part one is done - parts two and three I will do sometime before Christmas - not long to go now!!!

Christmas Trees

As I said yesterday, I have some Christmas Trees to show you!! There are a bunch of photo's which is why I didn't add this topic to yesterdays post (besides, I wanted to leave something to talk about today!)

Anyway - at work, we are not allowed to pin/stick/fix anything to the walls, so we try and make do with what we have and when I first started at the library a few years ago, there was just one very teeny tiny tree - it looked like this.

Which I was never very impressed with, but it did the job! Then in 2006 my library merged with another and they brought with them a very respectable little tree, we decorated it in red and green this year....

We also acquired two additional trees this year - one because Asda was donating a bunch of red or gold trees to the hospital and we decided to snaffle a gold one if we could....

I also decided that we really need a big, relatively speaking, tree to go in the main part of the library....

Then I put up my own tree at home, and of course, this is the best one!!!

Elf Yourself!

I was going to blog my Christmas Trees today (yes plural!), but then Mum sent me an email with a link to a little program of me and my brothers being "elfed"!!

This little program was first spotted by Marielle and that has made the rounds. If you have not come across this before, it is a program that allows you to put headshots of whomever you like onto the bodies of dancing elves - really rather funny - see us lot here!

Radio Times

I have just discovered that the Christmas Edition of the Radio Times is now available to buy!! I love the Christmas edition, it really seems to signal the fact that Christmas is not so far away now! (but then again it feels as though I have been saying that for ages now, so perhaps Christmas is further away than I think!!)

I shall certainly be buying it as soon as I can, although in recent years there just doesn't seem to be much on - nothing that I want to watch anyway!! Perhaps I am getting to be just that little bit more discriminating in what I watch on television, I will still get the RT though and see what is on, not that I have many channels myself - I still only have five channels!!

I certainly remember poring over the RT as a child and circling everything I wanted to watch, which probably amounted to several hours viewing each day!! In any case I never got round to watching everything as there was usually too many other, more exciting, things going on!

Infestation of lights!

Christmas lights are gradually taking over the village!! First they appear in one window and then another; and before you know it, the whole street is infested!!! ;-)

I do love it though - it really does brighten up that dark and gloomy drive home from work in the dark!

Some houses are quite restrained and just have a single set of lights, whether that's a set of candles in the window, a single Santa on the roof, or some icicles hanging from the eaves. But others....well...there is one just round the corner from me...and they have taken up every single bit of space that they could possibly find.

The house is covered in red, blue, yellow, green (and all the rest of it!) and it does look very colourful, if a little bit ostentatious. When you come round the corner you just cannot miss this blazing tribute to Christmas, I just wonder what their electricity bill will look like in January!

I don't put lights on the outside of my house, but I usually put a stand of 'candles' in the window and set that on a timer so that they are on by the time I come home. It really is quite uplifting to come home to house that it lit from within - very welcoming.

Christmas Meme

Given how much I just love Christmas, I have decided to set up a meme of my own - all about Christmas! There are five questions to this meme (random number I suppose!!)

1. What is your most enduring Christmas memory? (Note that this could be either good or bad!!) I think that there is no particular moment of Christmas that stands out for me, but if pushed, I would have to say it is that childhood moment when I woke up (after taking what felt like ages to fall asleep) and then felt around the bottom of my bed with my feet to feel the reassuring weight of the stocking lying on top of my duvet.

2. Do you have a favourite piece of Christmas music? I am already starting to listen to my collection of Christmas CDs - they range from children's song to classical music to Christmas carols, not to mention those crooners like Bing Crosby! How can I pick a favorite?! I think that this would have to be "We three kings of Orient..." I love the rhyme and rhythm of this song.

3. Do you stick to the old family traditions? Well, I think that our traditions have evolved over the years, for instance, we used to open our presents after the breakfast table was cleared up, washed up and put away, then as we got older we decided that we could be a bit more restrained and would wait until the Grand Dinner had been dispensed with (of course, this meant that Mum could take part in the Christmas present opening without having to dash back and forth to the kitchen!). So...on thinking about it, I don't think that we have any traditions that, if dropped, I'd cry foul! If anything - we are creating new ones - I now make Christmas Crackers (or bombs - given the weight of them!) and I am sure that we continue to create new ones as the youngest of the family grow up!

4. What makes your mouth water at Christmas time!? For me, this would have to be turkey gravy!! Of course, all the other goodies always get me going, let me list them (!) sausages in bacon, marzipan, chocolate on the tree, chocolate coins - any more chocolate!?!? I actually think that is rather a sedate list - what does yours look like!?

5. How soon do you put the Christmas tree up and when do you take it down? There is a neighbour across the road that put their tree up about a week ago, which I think is too soon, but then I would not leave it until Christmas Eve either - I need to have some time to enjoy the tree! This year, though, I think that I will be putting it up on the weekend of the Third Advent (14th-15th) and then I expect that I will take it down either New Years Day or the weekend after that. (As long as it comes down by the twelfth day of Christmas!!)

So, there you - my first meme of my very own! I don't quite know to 'tag' people, so apologies if I have done it wrong, but I have chosen to tag the following people because I like their blogs!

1. Santa (of course!)
2. Matt at My Indecision is Final
3. Melody at Mel's Reading Corner
4. Margaret at BooksPlease
5. Kimberley at CraftyMe

And of course, anyone else that would like take part in this meme - feel free!! Just let me know that you are doing this so that I can find out all about you and your Christmas; you can either put your answers in your blog or just add your answers to my blog via the comments bit!

Winter

Winter nights always make me think of the way Pops used to start a story "it was a dark and stormy night..." It makes me smile even now as I always used to fall for his sneaky joke! It goes something like this

"It was a dark and stormy night, and there were three men in a cave; one man turned to the other and said .....It was a dark and stormy night...."

I fell for it every single time because I was always keen to hear another story from Pops as he was a good story teller. In the end though, I got wise to him!!

Anyway, that wasn't actually the point of this post, the point was to complain about how dark it gets, I was driving along the road at about 4:30pm and wondering just when did it get dark before 5pm!! It's no wonder people get depressed in the winter with dark morning and darker evenings!

Having said that, for the most part I quite like dark evenings as I can draw the curtains, light the candles (away from the curtains mind you!), make a cup of tea and just snuggle up with the cat - preferably with a good book in my hand!! And that was precisely what I did yesterday - I even had the TV turned off and Clannad playing in the background - it was bliss.

Of course, Dad will say that the best evenings are when we have come home from walking the dog and the wind is beginning to get up, but we are snug in the house with the fire going and lots of tea and toast to be had. (it goes without saying that the wet and somewhat smelly dog stays in the kitchen!!)

The best thing about winter though, has to be Christmas! As you may have gathered from previous posts, I am a bit of a Christmas nutter! I love the whole thing - the run up to Christmas with the present buying (although that can get a bit stressful!), making Christmas cards, making crackers, putting up the tree and all the rest of it.

I never tire of it, I do get a bit fed up when I start seeing Christmas stuff in the shops in August, but I get into the swing of it all by the end of November when I have usually already got a few presents tucked away in the house and am beginning to think about what design to use for my Christmas cards. I even begin to work out which Carol concerts or services I can go do; and this year I am going to a doozy of a concert - this one is Carols by Candlelight at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

Ann, Trish and I are going on Sunday 23rd December, as near as Christmas as we could get it!! I have never been to a concert at the Albert Hall and so I am really looking forward to it, if I am not in the mood for Christmas by then (unlikely I know!) then this should do it for me!! ;-)