Finally it was Sunday the 19th and our mulled wine & mince pies party was upon us. Unfortunately it snowed rather heavily in the morning so a couple of friends didn't make it and a few others were on christmas holidays somewhere hot and sunny but apart from that I think it was a resounding success.
There was only a couple of drivers in amongst all the guests so lots of wine was consumed and I think a happy time was had by all. We still have some mince pies left over which we are enjoying on a daily basis and I am already looking forward to doing it all again next Christmas - so keep the last Sunday before Christmas free if you want to come and do it all over again!

Mum & Dad arrived on Christmas Eve and we had a delicious Fish pie for dinner with a few cheeky glasses of wine - not too much though as there is nothing worse than a hangover on Christmas Day (I speak from experience - once and once only!) All too soon (Lily woke up at around 5am) Christmas Day was here and we managed to delay the opening of the stockings until around 6am when I admitted defeat and got up to put the heating on. After viewing what Santa had brought for Tom & Lily, Nick went down and made a pot of tea before we retired back to bed to open our stockings.
We could delay the inevitable no longer and had to get up, so after a starter breakfast it was through to the lounge around 8am to start with the presents under the tree. I needed a break by quarter to nine so we stopped for bacon butties and coffee before finishing off later in the morning when I then required some toast!
We sat down to our Christmas lunch at about 2pm and I have to say it was quite, quite delicious. We all managed to overeat and then we relaxed for the rest of the day. I ate so much at lunch that I didn't actually eat anything else except for a small piece of cheese later on in the evening to accompany a glass of wine and then it was bedtime.
We went for a nice walk along the beach yesterday and some friends popped in for coffee and a chat today and apart from that it's been very quiet and I am getting a bit agitated now and am looking forward to the return to school and work and all that that means;)

Bah Humbug

I finally got round to posting some pictures of Tom as Scrooge in the school play, he did brilliantly.

Even managing a solo during one of the songs. How fantastic is that? I was a very proud mama.

Nick even managed to get away from work early enough to come and enjoy the performance too.

It's now Sunday morning and all the mince pies have been made (192 of them) , the invites have been issued and the ingredients for the mulled wine have been purchased and it's decided to snow again. Bah humbug...we may be eating a lot of mince pies as there is loads more snow forecast for today.

Ta Da!

The Christmas Draw was great fun and in case you're wondering why I am standing next to a Statue of Liberty, this year's theme was 'Fairytale in New York' . The shoes are excruciatingly painful when you are standing in them for a long time so will not be worn again if there is to be lots of standing. They are wearable for an evening of sitting down though as I wore them to Frannie's 40th way back in September and my feet were fine then.
We had a fairly relaxed weekend after that and then it was another Monday and look what I did...

Pastry getting cut out...

Mince pies taking shape...

Ta Da...completed mince pies. Finally got off the mark and made 72 so feeling a bit better about Sunday. I've been at work today so will make more again tomorrow.

The mince pie saga continues with none made yet but at least the invites are now out there along with some of the christmas cards.
Monday saw another day off school due to the snow but at least I managed to get round there with the completed waistcoats as the secretary was in. So I got the last of them finished off as well and in total made up 63 waistcoats - I did a few spares just in case.
Tuesday saw me catch the bus into Dundee as Nick was still driving my car to work but today he finally managed to take his in so I could reclaim the mrecedes and drive to work today.
I thought I would finally get started on the mince pies tomorrow but had forgotten about my appointments with beauticians and hairdressers tomorrow for the Christmas Draw tomorrow night. So the great mince pie production should now hopefully start on Monday. Wish me luck.

I managed to complete Tom's Scrooge costume last weekend and it looks pretty good.

Tom getting into character.

We traipsed round to school on Monday morning with the costume, the waistcoats and my sewing machine only to find the school shut due to the snow. So it was back home for a duvet day....which turned into a duvet week with the school closed until Friday when we were able to repeat our earlier trip to school laden with sewing machine and costumes.

So we had a bit of a rush on to finish the waistcoats, especially when it was discovered that we had 60 to make not 40. So today I have sewn all the ones we cut out yesterday and we have a total at home of 44 with some completed ones left at school so I reckon Monday morning should see the end of the work. Thank goodness - then I can finally get on with making mince pies.

Fun in the snow.

Cool snowman with a scarf made from leftover material from the dreaded waistcoats.