One Week

Tis a week before Christmas and all round the house

Nothing is stirring, not even the mouse

The tree is up, the presents are wrapped

Mince pie, mulled wine, time to relax

Christmas has always been a much loved and looked forward to time for me, the build up, lists, decorating the tree, stringing the cards up, putting up the outside lights, happily spending most of Christmas and Boxing days preparing food, and always striving to make it perfect. However I now set the bar a little lower, I still enjoy a bit of shopping, a little baking, card sending, present buying and wrapping, but I don’t get stressed if it doesn’t go to plan, I simply say to myself “What is the very worst thing that can happen?” 

There have been a few Christmas disasters - underestimating how long the turkey needed to defrost one year and having to stand it overnight on a stool in front of the open oven set on its lowest setting. And the time when, after one too many sherries I dropped the roast potatoes on the kitchen floor, a fairly clean floor, but nevertheless a floor regularly festooned with all manner of human and canine detritus. I quickly scooped them up, wiped them with a tea towel and put them back in the oven. My girls were about 6 or 7 at the time and my mother and an aunt were with us that year but no one knew and no one was ill. I confirmed two things from that encounter - life is much less stressful after a few sherries, and a bit of muck doesn’t actually harm you!

The last couple of years Christmas day has been completely stress free, as we have treated ourselves to dinner out. We return home replete and spend the rest of the day relaxing. I do a quiz for my family  - identify TV advert slogans, identify well known company logos, charades, my version of articulate, and this one which I introduced last year - familiar objects from unfamiliar angles. How many can you identify? Answers below.

I love decorating the Christmas tree, and it has to be a real one. I'm not OCD but... I put the decs on the tree in the same order every year! I start with my favourites at the top and the front, then the rest.

Over the years I have acquired lots of decorations, sentimental, old, new, modern and traditional.

These birds were my mum's. When she started to downsize her Christmas trees she gave me some of her

decorations. I don't know how old these are, I would guess at over 50 years,

I remember them from when I was a little girl. 

This is all that's left of her lovely colourful baubles. 

A fairy has a hard time up where the tinsel glitters

A wand of gold in one hand and a fir tree in her knickers

I bought this lovely fairy in a garden centre sale a few years ago

along with these other favourites, they were bargains

My grandson made this one when he was little

My daughter bought these whilst on holiday

And some fun ones

Time to publish this post, my laptop just had a minor funny turn, nothing as bad as a couple of weeks ago, no programmes were working, my son-in-law did some diagnostics, unistalled and re-installed things and it was ok. I hate it when things don't work and I can't mend them.

 mmm chilli and rice with garlic bread for tea.

How do you decorate your tree, do you have a tree, do you have favourite decorations?

How well did you do with the pictures? I think I made them too easy :-)

an iron, the dogs' bowl of water, a box of oxo cubes, spaghetti, a pineapple, a bottle of milk