Run up to Christmas

On Thursday Tom finally broke up from school - seemed to be a long time coming, and then of course we rushed head first into the chaos of Christmas.  Thursday evening was spent at Wensleydale with the Perkins family enjoying the 20% off everything event and cheese tapas at the creamery, then we headed straight to the Bickerstaffs for a Christmas party before rolling into bed around 10pm.

The Watsons minus a grumpy Jenny!

On Friday we headed out to Crooklands to meet up with the Watsons for morning coffee.  They were back from Shanghai for a whirlwind tour of the UK to see family.  Considering Lisa is from Surrey and Cameron from Scotland, it was a little frantic for them, so we were very pleased that they contacted us to see if we could meet up.  They were the same old same old, just had lots of tales of their adventures to date.  Don't think Lisa has had a day to herself since they arrived, what with house hunting, moving, furniture acquisition, co-ordinating shipments from the uk and 1001 activities the girls get up to with school.  Certainly hasn't had time to get bored.  Anyway it was great to see them, next time will hopefully be in Shanghai in 2019 when we go to see them.

Feeling the Force

We had lunch at Cowan Bridge on the way home and then I headed out with my last Lily Pad Bakery deliveries for those who hadn't managed to collect.  I got home at 5pm, and found an email from Etsy saying I had made a tea cosy sale.  Poo - the Post Office was closed so it was impossible to get it to my customer in time for Christmas.  Luckily I was able to get hold of her, she said it was for her mum who wasn't at home so it was ok, but a note for next year: check emails religiously on the 2 days before last posting date before Christmas!


On 23rd, we had a useful morning getting the house ready for Christmas.  After lunch Jude and Craig arrived.  They brought loads of goodies with them - including some huge cardboard boxes, which Tom immediately attacked.  They became a train and that was it, he was occupied for the rest of the day with his engine driver's hat on and travelling around the kitchen in it.  Definitely a case of the box being more interesting than its contents.

On the trail

We headed over to see The Perkins, they have some kittens and Matt had offered to feed them whilst they were away over Boxing Day etc.  We went round to meet them - Jude being a cat person wanted to come to so we all headed over.  The kittens weren't great company (a bit skittish - wouldn't come and play) but we were well entertained with some very nice red wine.

On our return, we had a quick walk around the village and then headed back to break open a bottle of mulled wine - it was official Christmas had begun.  We didn't do too much more that day - I had made a huge pot of miso pork ribs so we were collectively unable to move in the evening.  We lay on the sofas and watched Flint Street Nativity, a Christmas tradition in our house.


Christmas Eve dawned ok, so we donned our outdoor clothes and headed to the Waterfalls trail.  Jude had never done it and Craig last did it 20+ years ago.  The rain held off for the majority of the walk so we had a pleasant time.  The falls were looking pretty good.  Unfortunately the cloud line was pretty low so we didn't get any good views of the hills, means we will have to do it again with them when the sun is out.  We did it the classic way round so ended up in the village.  We headed to Bernies for lunch before heading back home and cracking open another bottle of mulled wine.

Working hard

Then it was time to build a gingerbread house. I had over produced my kits by 1, which was handy because by the time I had finished making them, I wasn't in the mood to make another one for Tom.  Tom wanted to make it with Auntie Jude and Craig so we cleared the table and let them loose on it.  They finished it in super quick time and Matt being Matt took a time lapse film of it which was fun. I'll certainly use it to advertise them next year.

Proud house building team

The evening was spent at the Old Post Office where we had platters (also rapidly becoming another Christmas tradition), then home, Tom put out a mince pie and whisky with a letter for Santa and carrot for Rudolph.  Cute story: Tom remembered that last year there was a bit of carrot stalk left so he asked if he should cut the stalk off for Rudolph this time.  Bless!!!

Oh - note for next year: Elf on a Shelf, Tom had been badgering me to do Elf on a Shelf this year.  I didn't want to do it for 24 days, so decided that the elf could come with his letter from Santa.  It took him until quite late to write his letter to Santa, so his reply only came on 21st with his Elf (which he named Binesty?!) this meant the naughty elf was only around for a couple of nights.  It was actually quite fun playing with Binesty, so next year we need to encourage him to write his letter a bit quicker!