love those cupcakes

A new year

On this, the last day of the year, we drove to the coast, just 20 minutes from here.  It was blustery and busy, but we walked the length of the pier, watched the waves, breathed in deeply.  

Now, here we are, about to close the door on 2018.

A new year and possibility hovers just around the corner.

Wishing you all a very happy and healthy 2019.  

Here's to another 365 day trip around the sun.

 

Snapshot

Unusually, I took very few pictures of our Christmas celebrations, but I'm still documenting here what we got up to  because...well, just because.

Christmas Day fell into place as it always does, starting with surprise filled stockings followed by piles of presents (''Ooh'', exclaimed littlest, as he helped his daddy unwrap a gift of a leather belt,  ''tights!''), delicious food on a festive table, far too many bottles of bubbly, crackers (the pulling of which sent the dog into a doormat scratching frenzy), Scrabble (turns out I'm a very poor loser) and Downton Cluedo (it was Lady Mary, in the boudoir with the candlestick and, no, I wasn't even close, dammit).

In the days since, we've waved goodbye to littlest and his parents, called out the emergency plumber, been to the cinema to see Mary Poppins Returns (excellent, by the way), walked by the river, chased a high on catnip cat around the house, done laundry, eaten dinner cooked by someone else, decimated the mince pie and chocolate piles, read, restocked the fridge.

It's been good.  Very good. 

Now, in these last few in-between days, there's a new bed to order, a replacement for the one that collapsed underneath the sleeping visitors in the early hours of Christmas Eve.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One more sleep

Not long until the Big Day and a mammoth to do list to steadily work through.  

Of course, it wouldn't be the festive season without a few hiccups along the way and, as Christmas Eves go, this one is turning into one of those unfortunately memorable ones.

The bathroom shower suddenly decided cold water is best, far too much time was spent at the GP surgery (the waiting room was like a sanatorium with all the coughing and barking going on) to have stitches removed and being stuck in a traffic jam on the way home, we have every drink known to man in the house apart from the one requested by the Girlie's mister, one of the spare beds collapsed at 4 a.m.  with two of the visitors asleep in it and I've managed to spectacularly clog up the waste disposal with veg peelings.

But there are presents galore under the tree, the littlest has plated up some snacks for Santa and the Boy has made a gingerbread wreath.

There's just time to say thank you so much for your visits and comments and to wish you all

a very merry Christmas.

And an elastic waistband.

 

On Christmas

I love Christmas.  From the day the tubs of Quality Street and packs of glittery greetings cards make their early entrance in the supermarket, to the seemingly interminable shopping and inevitable panic as the doors (or windows if you prefer) all too rapidly open on the Advent calendar.  I love it all, me.

But the most significant part of this favourite time of year is the element of tradition, those special little customs and rituals that, together, make up what the festive season means to an individual, to a family, and without which the celebrations just wouldn't feel right.  They're the rhythm of Christmas.

 

Like the decorating of the tree (a real one, carefully selected at the garden centre for its height, symmetry and erectness) a week before the Big Day (never sooner) with strings of silver lametta and the collection of mismatched ornaments (one almost as old as me) amassed over the years, each with its own backstory. 

 

Or the Christmas Eve carol service at the local church where, every year, after the lights have been dimmed as the final verse of the last carol is sung, the slow procession of Mary and Joseph towards the manger (which one year accommodated a real baby) down the central aisle never fails to set off the festive blubbing.

 

Then there's all that special food that you'd never dream of eating at any other time of year.  The celery and Stilton soup (from a recipe in a former colleague's Robert Carrier cookbook, scribbled on the back of a work memo whilst working an unusually quiet shift on the Social Services Emergency Duty Team), the mince pies (actually, I often dream out of season about eating these), a Christmas cake (my dad's own 'mixture') smothered in yellow marzipan and Royal icing snow, the cashew and chestnut roast, Christmas pudding with rum sauce (never ever brandy butter), Ritz crackers (oh, that year I was certain I'd bought a box but couldn't find it) topped with blobs of squeezy cheese, Twiglets and cheese footballs, a mandarin orange trifle. Yeah, Christmas is classy here.

And not forgetting the special pong (that unmistakable mix of clementines, spice scented candles, Marks and Spencer's pot pourri, fir tree resin and whiffs of a calorie laden something cooking in the oven), the Christmas edition of the Radio Times, the night at the panto, the annual re-reading of a favourite book from schooldays, the 'whilst we're waiting for the man in the red suit to visit' game of Scrabble, the Terry's chocolate oranges.  

 These are the sounds, the tastes, the objects, the scents that just shout Christmas.  And don't even think about dropping them.  It doesn't matter that no-one eats the chocolate yule log (shop bought, probably a Sainsbury's one this year) that always has pride of place on the Christmas Eve buffet table.  Not to serve it alongside the plates of savoury nibbles would be tantamount to committing festive suicide.

 

My children might be adults and one a parent herself but I cannot imagine getting away with not creeping along the upstairs landing after everyone has taken themselves off to bed during the dying embers of the 24th and leaving over-filled stockings at bedroom doors, just as I did when they were younger and their father was snoring loudly on the sofa after too many glasses of seasonal port.

 

Of course, you don't plan these ways of doing things, they just happen, and, as with life, nothing stays exactly the same. Traditions carried on from your own childhood Christmases will inevitably evolve over time as new ones are absorbed into the festive programme. 

 

But they are what makes a family's celebrations special, adding to the memory store and ensuring a connectedness and continuity with the past.  

 

They are Christmas.