Herds of Reindeer

I'm ending the year here with reindeer.

Try saying that later on this evening when a few glasses of new year cheer have been downed.

First up are the wrapped reindeer chocolate bars which I made for all my work colleagues and took in on the last working day. When I say all I must admit I did forget one or two and thankfully had a couple of spares but there are still more to take in as some people were off until the New Year. 

The idea came from this pin.

Thieytook far longer than I bargained for but luckily S was at a loose end and agreed to help me with the sticky dot noses and she even did a bit of the name stamping too. 

It was all so worth the effort to see people smile when I handed them over.

My second herd I had planned on making with S but she didn't want to partake. I do miss our Decembers of advent activities and so I think I shall have to spend some time coming up with a few ideas with which to keep me busy next year.
Who knew that fairy cakes, chocolate icing, red smarties and bars of curly wurly could look so cute.

On this last day of 2016 I want to wish everyone who visits us here at Jumble and Jelly a very happy, healthy and peaceful 2017. 
Thanks for popping by and I look forward to sharing the next 365 days with you.

Our Christmas

I hope you all had a very happy Christmas and that these in between days have been full of tasty leftovers and a chance to relax and recharge. 

Our Christmas day was just the four of us.

G and I woke up before the children and were sat up in bed waiting for them to bring their stockings in to us!

The day was very mellow with everyone doing, or not doing, whatever they wanted.

Our tradition of silly table presents made sure lunchtime was entertaining.

S looked twinkly in her tinsel headband

T preferred wearing G's gift

because his gift was a false beard (purchased when he was consistently clean shaven) and the adhesive strips pulled out his real beard!
G's t-shirt and the beard merged into one and made him look like a member of ZZ Top.

Finally here's me in my elf hat. And yes I am wearing the false beard too in case you were wondering.

Boxing day T had to go into work and my family joined the 3 of us for breakfast.

The following day, and back to being 4 again, we hopped on the train to Salisbury and spent some time with G's family.

It's been a quieter Christmas and a bit different at times because the children are growing up, we've given and received some fabulous presents, there's been fun and laughter and we have been lucky enough to make some more happy family memories.

Without...

It's been 11 days since my last post. 

I had hoped my December blogging would have been a bit more frequent than this.

Of course I've been busy, working my way down a never ending list of Christmas prep, just like everyone else is I'm sure.

Something else has made blogging difficult, being without internet access for nearly one week.

It was all to do with Windows 10 and our internet supplier.

No big deal in the whole scheme of things but a bit frustrating and so I am way behind in reading everyone else's news.

Another frustrating situation followed once that one was solved.

We ordered a new cooker on the Sunday, it was delivered on the Tuesday, the electrician cancelled on the Wednesday but arrived on the Thursday to wire it in, he told us it's kilo wattage was incompatible with our electric socket.

What?????

I didn't know this was a thing I should know about.

I rang the company we bought the cooker from and they said 'no problem, choose another'.

So I did.

Saturday morning the wrong cooker was collected and the right cooker was delivered and then Sunday morning the electrician came back and wired it in place.

Again no big deal but it just throws things out when there is already so much else going on.

I have been cracking on with the present wrapping though and am nearly done.

I thought I'd share

the gifts I bought for my sister C for Christmas as I know some of you like to see what I amass for her, so here are the ones she'll be opening this year.

I can't quite remember the prices for all items but they do total just under £10.

Each of these tops were £1 a piece.

C chose the pink long length sleeveless top herself and this was another £1. I love the dark blue fluffy top in the middle photo. The polka dot items will look good in her kitchen, these were 30p each and  the robin candle was £1 also.

The bag was brand new and £1.

These little house decorations were 60p.

No present for C would be complete with a mug and this 50p one is perfectly decorated for the winter season.

The most expensive item is the one I think she'll like the most. This little Kiss sign was £1.80 and bought from a branch of Cargo which was having a closing down sale.

As well as conventional wrapping I've been doing a bit of origami.

My nephew has gone part time at work as he is studying with the OU.

This means his income has dropped.

So I thought a voucher for him to have a little treat would be a good idea.

I didn't want to just give him a voucher in an envelope so I bought a pack of J2O drinks and labelled this as 'for a night in' and then following origami instructions online I made a Christmas tree and slotted a Wetherspoons voucher in the back and labelled this as 'for a night out'.

My sister says he and his girlfriend like going to the cinema and as there is a Wetherspoons close by they'll be able to have a meal before the movie and make an evening out of it.

Festivities

One of the reasons I rested up last Sunday was because I needed to have the energy to get me to an appointment in Salisbury on Monday.

For the last couple of years I've been having an issue with one particular tooth and am now at the stage where I needed to consult a specialist about it.

Extraction or a reworking of a root canal are the options.

Neither choice is great.

I managed to squeeze in tiny amount of Christmas shopping before heading home and buying the Christmas edition of the Radio Times certainly cheered me up.

Tuesday was a quieter day than normal at work and for that I was very thankful.

Another new set of festive bedding this week.
Again this was purchased in a sale after last Christmas.
Love the little houses and the colours are very CK.

I've had some lovely little gifts from my sister in our advent swap and this pumpkin brooch is one of my favourites so far. It's going to be a while before I get to wear it though!

By Wednesday I was feeling loads better than I had been at the weekend, which was good news as I was due to go Christmas shopping with my mum and two sisters. 
It was good fun being out with them and by the end of the day I had lots more things ticked off my list.

With spending Monday and Wednesday out and about I haven't had chance to get much festive decorating done around the house, just the odd item here and there.

Each evening I've spent a short time wrapping up a couple of presents and am loving making stars to decorate them with.

Stars made with drinking straws.

Who'd have guessed it was possible.

Thread them together and form into a pentagon.

Give them a twist and hey presto a star appears.

We were due to put up our Christmas tree Friday evening but it's been postponed until Sunday as S had a friend round for a sleep over.

So instead of a decorated tree to finish off this post here is how I've hidden the £5.00 inside a box of chocolates which I will be sending over to each my friend's 2 teenage sons.

Cold

I have a cold.

Not surprising really seeing as most of the people I work with have been full of colds these past few weeks, it was bound to get me sooner or later. 

I was very glad to arrive home on Friday and have the weekend stretching out in front of me.

No commitments to be anywhere at anytime but with various possibilities out there if we wanted.

Saturday morning was cold but bright and I felt like a walk in the fresh air would help with my head full of stuffiness.

A Christmas fair was being held at a local plant nursery and so that's where we headed, only stopping for a quick photo opportunity.

G is always on the look out for the Jack Reacher books by Lee Child and was very pleased to find two more to add to his collection. S and I found some pretty earrings but my favourite buy was this pink snowflake Pyrex dish.
I have seen them on Pinterest but never one in the flesh. I only paid a pound for it from a bric a brac stall and was gob smacked to see the them selling online for over £100. It's going to have pride of place on the dresser this Christmas.

Housework, a little spot of present wrapping and then some feet up time followed before we wrapped up warm once again and took ourselves down to the local high street for their annual Christmas event.

This can be a bit of a hit or miss affair, this year's was more the latter but we do like to support local events if we can.

I do like the snowmen which adorned the tops of each of the Christmas trees lining the street.

The heads are made from those plastic topiary balls which have been sprayed white and black.

The charity shop I used to volunteer in many moons ago had stayed open late for the event and so we nipped in and I found this pretty heart decorated spice rack for £1.00, something I've been looking out for.

Even after a goodnight's sleep I was loathe to get up this morning. I felt so lethargic and was all bunged up again.

I laid there thinking of all that I needed to do but instead of getting up and setting to G got up made me breakfast in bed and there we stayed for a while longer to watch one of my favourite movies of all time.

The Bishop's Wife.

If you haven't seen it then you must.

Cary Grant and David Niven.

Enough said. 

After watching the movie I did get up and do the majority of those jobs which I needed to do.

Just at a slower, my head is full of cold pace.

Holidays Are Coming

The Coca Cola truck was in town on Wednesday.
The queues were huge and it was so very cold we didn't hang around for too long, just long enough to get a selfie.

Advent Swap

My sisters and I met up yesterday so we could exchange gifts for our advent swap.
We have all year to accumulate 18 little items to which we add another 6 food/drink related items so there are 24 in total, one to unwrap each day.
This year I bought for my sister C and above are just 3 of the ones she will be opening, a Father Christmas shaped car air freshener, a mini ice scraper on a key ring and a cute cottage key cover. The first cost 99p and the other two were 50p each so it doesn't have to cost a fortune to do.
Middle sister T is buying mine and my first present this morning was an advent candle which is burning brightly as a I type.
Thinking of 18 different things can seem a little daunting at first but once you get going and keep an eye out whilst shopping it's really quite easy.
My old boss is doing a swap with a close friend of hers for the first time this year. Her mum passed away just before Christmas a couple of years ago which, quite understandably, affected the way she felt about the festivities, but she said thinking of gifts to buy and then collecting them over the course of the year has really ignited that little festive spark for her again which I think is a very special thing indeed.