The rush for Christmas

As can be told by the fact that this is my first post since December 2nd, tying blogging, cooking, decorating, making and going to work together has been a bit tricky. What have I learnt? A) writing a blog is more fun than homework, but you do have to force yourself into a stride. B) Even though I started planning for Christmas at the end of October, perhaps because of that, you can never fully avoid making and preparing things close to Christmas if you're the one doing a lot of the cooking. I'd much rather be baking, making and decorating my way to Christmas than getting everything in ready-made however! C) A 'Christmas Countdown' blog probably needs to be more of a countdown, and less of a sporadic assortment of ramblings :)

I may have been a bit slack, but I have not forgotten to take photos! I will be posting a number of photos today and tomorrow, highlighting efforts made for my 'Christmas Countdown'.

So, a Holly Jolly Christmas to those of you who may have accidentally stumbled upon this blog and wondered at its banal nature, and, of course, to the one 'loyal' follower, my friend Annabelle, Merry Christmas!

 Lime and rosemary vinegar. Not my idea, but smells good.

 Mini jam tarts, for those at work not partial to chocolate mince pies. (More of later) When frozen, the jam remains springy, but they defrost well I think.

 Making lemon and grapefruit marmalade. Bizarre to peel a lemon and see it as a segment fruit, like an orange. Resisted the temptation to bite off a segment...partly due to the fact that it took an age to peel..

 For ages, the marmalade just would not thicken. In the end, I had to take it off the boil to go out, and, when I came back, the cooling process seemed to have thickened the marmalade perfectly. It'll mainly be given as gifts, I'm not actually the hugest fan..

 All wrapped-up and in a kilner jar, for my Aunt and Uncle.

 Amazing what a celophane bag and some raffia ribbon will do to a few cheap sweets. Hope and Greenwood charge a fortune for their jars of sweets (in my opinion), so I have more plans up my sleeve for wrapping and jarring sweets up, for a fraction of the cost!

 Efforts towards making Christmas Day easier are underway - apple and sage stuffing balls, going into the freezer

 Filo tartlets, most with a spinach and cheese filling, and six with a gorgonzola and proscuitto filling.

 Swedish Pepparkaka shapes, with various homemade decorations.

 Not quite pulling off the Scandinavian style with this but not bad.

One of the creations of my elf helper (Mother). A white star, but looks a but like a fairy to me :)

The Christmas tree is up!

Unashamedly, the tree is up, bedecked with all sorts of decorations. It took a while to finish putting it up and decorating it, so all I had time to do was add a few stitches to my work-in-progress Christmas bear cross-stitch project. 

Still feel like I need to get on top of things, so I will attempt to turn Sunday into a very productive day of making, and maybe baking. 

More soon!