"Silly Season", Sufficiently Sufficient Style!

Since my last post I have enjoyed a trip to Sydney & Scone to visit with friends-the travel involved was well worth it, as I spent the days with them in tears of laughter-just what I needed before the "Silly Season" sets in!

Today I have finally made our Christmas Pudding-the fruit has been soaking since October. It's a 3-in-1 mix, which also provides for our Christmas Cake ( which I made a couple of weeks back).

Once the pudding has boiled for 4 hours it needs to hang to dry-so here is how I do it! Upturn one of the stools on the kitchen bench, thread through a pole and voila! Pudding Drying contraption!

 

For breakfast this morning His Lordship & I enjoyed homemade strawberry jam ( made in the microwave from our homegrown strawberries) on homemade sourdough English Muffins....mmmmmmmm.

 

Finally-here is a rather ordinary photo of this year's Christmas tree- instead of the red,green & gold I have used for years I have gone for a "vintage" theme-with most ornaments handmade by me! Why yes, yes I am pleased with my efforts! My humility could do with some work though....... ;)

 

No-the angel is not about to swan dive off the top-that's His Lordship's effort-which has been rectified!

 

 

Oh Christmas tree.....

I LOVE December 1st! I have always put the tree up and decorated it on the 1st. To me, it's a way of acknowledging where we have come from-although many people do not celebrate the "Christ in Christmas" and even fewer realise that Christmas day itself was originally a pagan celebration on the Winter Solstice, I enjoy the thought that what we are celebrating has been done so by generations before us!

This year there is a touch of sadness for me as I mark the last of our children to pass into adulthood-technically I am no longer responsible for bringing up any children!  However, we are blessed with being young Grandparents-we get to spend many hours running, playing and guiding the grandsons we already have and will look forward to doing so with the two babies due next year!

This is our tree this year-my apologies for the dark photo, but I had to use my phone as a certain daughter has "mislaid"my camera! We are yet to place the angel on top-our family tradition is that my husband contributes to the tree decorating by aligning the Angel when he gets home from work-whilst making some sort of silly "Dad"comment!

The past few days have seen us enjoying produce from our garden-fresh raspberries with yoghurt for breakfast and salads for dinner. The sense of achievement which comes from placing a meal on the table from your own garden cannot be surpassed in my opinion!

Christmas on my mind.....

A couple of months ago I changed my working hours so that I would have Thursdays and Fridays off-giving me a four day weekend every week ( I have spinal arthritis, so this allows my body to recover from work..) and the past two weeks I have finally had the Fridays off!!! Still working on actually totally dropping the Thursday too...

Today has been very productive- I baked for His Lordship's work afternoon tea-it was his turn to provide it for the office again; then dropped the teenager at her VCE exam scheduled today. A bit of shopping for goodies for Christmas, then home to mow the orchard and potter in the garden. Fed some weeds to the hens-much to their delight!

The Christmas goodies were mainly ingredients as I'm planning on a lot of handmade gifts for the adults this year. So far I've decided on the following:
* Homemade coffee liquer
* Spiced Christmas cookies
* Individual Christmas cakes ( made in muffin tins)
* Mini "blocks" of chocolates
* Cookies in a Jar mixes
* Homemade soaps
* Jams & chutneys
* Christams truffles
* Fudge made in the microwave

For the younger kids I'll be using alphabet cookie cutters to bake each of their names, then wrapping each in a cellophane bag for gifting.

How's your Christmas planning coming along?