Christmassy

 We're now well into the Christmas school holidays and so far,
 so very good. After the rush and busyness of the last few weeks,
 we've slowed down and it's so nice to have this time to rest, reflect,
take a breath and finish up the last of our festive preparations.
I think we're almost there, just the girls' presents to wrap and a few
cards to write. We'll be at my parents-in-law's on the twenty fifth
 but we're also having our own little celebration on Christmas Eve,
our Noche Buena. We'll have Filipino food as we do every year -
spring rolls, dumpling soup, leche flan. It's going to be great.

I'm nearly done with Lulu's scarf but aside from the presents
I've been making Christmassy bits and pieces too. I made these
clay ornaments with the girls a few weeks ago.

We used air-dry clay that was leftover from Markie's school
project, biscuit cutters and alphabet stamps. They were very easy
and quick to make and looks lovely on our tree. I think we'll make
some more to use as gift tags next year.

And this is a tree brooch I made for Lulu's cardi.

It was Christmas jumper day at school last Friday but as she
didn't have any to wear, I resorted to a bit of crochet. I think it made
her cardi look very Christmassy, thanks to 201 Crochet
motifs, blocks, projects& ideas by Melody Griffiths for the pattern.
I really like that book!

I also made a mandala for our table. It needed some festive colours
so again, I got out my yarn and crochet hook.

This one's from issue 14 of Simply Crochet magazine and was
another quick make.

For teacher gifts, Lulu and I made these chocolate oat treats.

These are a firm favourite in our house and they're easy to make as
well. I love the decorations and sprinkles we used especially the
 stars and red and green ones. Hopefully the teachers liked them too.

Yesterday we made gingerbread biscuits and spent the whole
afternoon decorating them.

We've never made these biscuits before and neither have we used
our biscuit cutters for baking before this so I was quite relieved and
very pleased when they turned out really well. I prepared and put the
icing on the cooled biscuits while the girls did the rest of the
decorating. They loved it and they did a great job. We brought some
with us to the cinema this morning. It was a lovely snack, just perfect.

This last one is not my handiwork but I'd like to show you because
we think it's wonderful and it's top of our tree this year.

Lulu made it at nursery. Isn't it sweet? I can see this featuring
in our decorations for many more Christmases to come.

Tomorrow I'll be busy wrapping but it's wrapping of a different kind:
I'll be making spring rolls and dumplings. You can say it's wrapping
but of the yummy sort!


I'll be back here before the New Year. Have the loveliest
Christmas everyone!!