Merry Christmas!
I hope everyone is having / has had a lovely Christmas so far. I’ve got some lovely presents, including a pom pom scarf from my mother-in-law which is deliciously quirky and I suspect my friends may think I made it myself, but actually *ssshh* it’s from Accesorize. The lovely Mr. Lacer got a home fit for my third baby, i.e. my iphone, a speaker docking station thingy. Girl Lacer had been a complete sweet heart and had been squirelling away various home made presents under the tree for weeks and we also got from her (organised by her class teacher) a lovely mounted self portrait, using a water coloured striped background and then pastels (both kids use an impressive arrange of art materials at the school – Boy Lacer has been doing stuff with charcoal – I pretty much remember coloured pencils and that was it when I was at school).
Girl Lacer's portrait plus one of the Christmas presents she made.
The kids got a good haul of presents and have some more to go when we go to my dad’s, although at the moment they seem more interested in playing with mine and Mr. Lacer’s presents (I got Mr. Lacer a remote control car, which they both adore and Boy Lacer has been critically running through my selection of music on my iPod, he likes Robbie Williams), whereas me and Mr. Lacer are playing on their new (second hand) wii.
The presents I’ve been slaving over have been typically much ignored (the robot that has been causing sleepless nights is already disappearing under the sofa) and my tea towels that I have sent out to the world seem to be being interpreted as anything other than tea towels (one uncle thought they were things you drape on arm chairs). Will I do a handmade Christmas again? Yes, well I have to, I’ve seen how much money I’ve saved, so unless my circumstances are dramatically different next Christmas (they might be if I find a job and a) I’ll have money with correspondingly b) less time), I’ll be doing it again and as much as my tea towels are rather under appreciated (I’m coming to the conclusion that non-crafty people just don’t get the concept of embroidery on tea towels), it does feel nicer making something as opposed to going to the shops and thinking “What on earth do I get Uncles X, Y and Z?”. Next year though, I’m making soap, big time, specially as with drying time I will need to make it in October and I can do it in one big batch, which will lead to considerably less rush in the end.
As for Christmas Dinner, well thank god for cooking in advance on Christmas Eve this time, it made life a lot easier and no potatoes to peel on Christmas Day! So will definitely be doing that next year to. In the end we skipped starters. The roast pork belly, a Jamie Oliver recipe with a fennel seed rub, was easy enough to do and very cheap (enough pork belly for two cost us £2.91) and it smelt absolutely delicious when cooking and it did taste ok, but I’m really not a great hunk of meat girl, so I much preferred my Nigella roasties (which I had pre-cooked yesterday and finished off today) and my Mediterranean roasted vegetables. I think next year I’m tempted to make nut roast! Mr. Lacer can eat chicken dippers with the kids! Dessert was Nigella’s Yule Log, which despite the laughable icing tasted delicious and everyone, including Mr. Lacer, who hates chocolate cake, loved it, even though it was extremely chocolatey, so one for next year, with maybe slightly less Green & Blacks.
