The Count Down to Christmas

Here's a quick run down of what we have been up to:

17th & 18th November

Mountaineers

After staying at home in the morning on the Saturday with my open house (surprisingly few people came) we literally turned the music and lights off, locked the front door and headed to North Wales to see Jude and Craig as they have moved house to Gwernymynydd just outside Mold.  They have bought a 5 bedroom affair on top of a hill looking over the valley in which Mold sits.  A beautiful location.  They were surprisingly ordered considering they had only just moved in.  It is certainly a project, but one which they will have fun doing and I'm sure it will look amazing when they have finished, I look forward to seeing it progress.

A good thing about the country lane they live on is that there is a nice pub at the end of it and we headed there for tea - Tex Mex and very good it was too.  Better than that though, there was a pool table to Tom put Craig and Matt to work and apparently did a very good job (I managed to get out of it and stayed put at the table chatting to Jude and drinking red wine)

Airbus Beluga

On the way back on Sunday we headed to Barton Grange and had a good time looking around the Xmas display.  They do it well - they stock up on wonderful German village pieces, they aren't cheap but beautiful - a pub seemed to jump into our basket this year.  Matt got his way this year, it will be my turn next time.  It is lovely though, we now have a gingerbread house, pub and train scene in the lounge.

24th & 25th November

The Ingleton Massive

Nothing of note happened during the day on Saturday, however, we met up with The Holmans at the White Hart in Giggleswick for tea.  We all did well apart from Matt who ordered chorizo risotto and got rice mixed with ketchup - he doesn't like ketchup so it didn't go down well!  Think he had pudding to make up for it.

Sunday was the Santa Express.  I arranged it this year, and managed to get 8 families on board which exactly filled half a carriage which was ace, meant that we could be as noisy as we wanted and not annoy anyone else.  It was us, The Holmans, The Ellershaws, The Cronshaws, The Mannings, The Nicholls, The Raddas, and The Gregorys.  We were hoping that they wouldn't have changed it much from last year as last year was brilliant, although we weren't sure how they made any profit on it as they gave away so much.  We didn't need to worry - they had changed it a bit, but still there was plenty of entertainment and give aways.  I think everyone enjoyed themselves.

1st & 2nd December

British India Line

Saturday we were supposed to be going to the Bickerstaffs for tea, but they had double booked us - paarrrrr! It was us and the Mannings so I decided to invite the Mannings to us for tea.  We had horrible gammon and Sierra who is a veggie ended up with a lovely veggie puff thing that we got from Keelham (we were in Skipton for a football match).  It was a lovely evening.  The kids got together to play Christmas songs on the guitar and keyboard which was fun.

Bouncing Tom

Sunday: we headed early to Hest Bank so we could watch the Santa special thunder long the line.  It made an impressive sight.  We then headed to Archers for lunch and then to Jump Rush for Ellis' birthday party.  I took the chance to head to Aldi to buy all the bits and pieces I needed for my Christmas orders - it was one massive shop - but hopefully I shouldn't need to buy anything else. 

8th & 9th December

Football got cancelled today, it was a horrible day.   Grannie and Grandpa requested Tom's company to watch the snooker and so we took him round.  We had an afternoon to ourselves, so I carried on with my chocolate work and Matt did his.  The afternoon saw us at the Community Centre for the  Craven Wanderers Xmas Party.  I think it has finally happened, Tom and his age group looked lost.  They weren't interested in joining in with the entertainment and basically looked lost.  We stayed to the bitter end, but only because we had people to chat with, not because it was fun.  I couldn't bring myself to eat any of the food (a LOT of beige food).  I don't think we will bother with it again next year. 

Tom on his favourite rock

Sunday was actually a nice day, so we took the opportunity to get out for a walk and did the Ribblehead circuit and then headed to Hawes for lunch at Penny Garth.  Very nice it was too and very lovely to get out in the fresh air.

16th & 17th December

Tom went down with a sickness bug on Monday so had to take Tuesday and Wednesday off school - first days off for over a year.  Had to be at my busiest time of year.  Luckily Matt was able to take a day off and took him for a train spotting trip to Carlisle and back.

Saturday was Panto Time!  Football was cancelled on Saturday morning due to excessive rain, not a problem, we had a train to catch to Leeds.  It was panto time.  Liz had booked 20 plus tickets for the panto and we were all staying in the same hotel.  It was absolutely freezing today.  Matt had a translator's Xmas lunch to go to, so he headed off whilst Tom and I went to the hotel to drop our bags and then head into town.  We were almost blue with cold by the time we got into the city centre so headed to Itsu for warming soup / noodles.  Then a bit of shopping (it was heaving) before bumping into the Ellershaws and heading back to the hotel for some down time before meeting up with everyone in Pizza Express.

A VERY dirty 37.

Then we headed over to the panto - wow we were in the third row back which was ace, felt like we were much more part of the performance, and everyone was in good voice and enjoyed themselves. We got a shout out and Caitlin got to go on stage which was just ace.   We headed back to the hotel had a couple of drinks and then to bed.  Sunday we headed to breakfast and then had an amble around Leeds.  I did the last of the Christmas shopping whilst Tom and Matt went for a wonder around Leeds City Museum which was actually quite good - would happily go back to read and take it in better.  We then went to Bundobust for a snack before heading back on the train.

It was then the last week before Christmas so a bit of a manic one.  It was Christmas carol service on the Tuesday - where Tom did a guitar performance.  So the service started at 6.30 and we got there at 6.00 and it was pretty full.  We did get a seat but we couldn't see anything, we certainly didn't see Tom at all - but we heard him and we are told he did his bit on the guitar.  So next year...I have no idea what time we need to get there but definitely before 6pm if we want to see him!

The Ingleton Massive (again)

Wednesday he did his talent show entry - he was a comedy act with Charlie - doing Ministry of Silly Walks merged with an Army sketch with a Trunki full of soft toys.  We have no idea what exactly happened, but feedback from teachers is that it was funny and one of the TAs got the Ministry of Silly Walks reference.  Such a shame we didn't get to see it.

Thursday Tom went with the rest of the school to the Lowry to see Dr Doolittle.  Then Friday was party day and the end of term.  Phew.

Open House Mania

Wow!  What a busy November and December I have had!  Sorry for lack of posts - but I've been head down working since the last post.  I held my open house on 16, 17 & 19th November.  I posted about it on social media big time and lots of people cam through the door that haven't visited before which is great, and I got inundated with orders, so much so that at one point I was beginning to panic that I had taken on too much (mainly due to the fact I had quite a few cake bookings in my December diary already!).  This year I took over £1,000 in pre-orders which is a first.  (Haven't actually totted it up yet, but it was certainly my best Christmas season ever, mind you I expanded my range massively this year so I was hoping for a good season - I didn't use all my ideas either so got next year's season pretty much in my head already.

Fudge, gingerbread and truffles (oh and knitted goodies from last year)

Feedback from people was good - most were amazed that I had produced so much and my ideas were liked.  Think I need to do something with lego / star wars next year to cover the boy market.  I'll just park that here for now.  Also I was doing boxes of filled chocolates this year (dark chocolate, gilded ginger being the most popular by far).  I did boxes of 4 and 6, but people were wanting bigger boxes, so I need more shapes and more flavours for next year.

Oh and yes I still need to get up at 6am to get everything ready in time.  I washed the floor, tidied and cleaned the kitchen in advance, but it still took me till 9am to get it all out and ready - I literally finished as the first customer turned up!  So maybe start setting up the night before next year.  Being open all day Friday, Saturday morning and Monday morning was a good ploy this year and as a result more people came, so definitely do that again next year.

Oh and I took videos of my range and posted them to FB - this definitely got more business through the door, need to do again next year, but next time do it slower!

  

Anyway, since then I have been making chocolate and packing chocolate until it literally took over the house.  I came out in spots as I think I was breathing chocolate for quite a few weeks, the kitchen turned brown and I went through a whole 10kg bag of milk chocolate, about 7kg of white chocolate and about 2.5kg of dark chocolate. It was nuts, but a good nuts and I only badly tempered 2 batches of chocolate during the whole season which is good.

Salted caramel fruit and bullion bars...

 filled choccies, mermaid tails, unicorns...

Xmas choccies, loaded bars, sea creatures....

 phones, choccie men, motorbike & rusty
nuts & bolts, tools etc   

So I got it all ready and laid out by the end of Wednesday and then spent a lovely Thursday and Friday tidying up and clearing up the mess of the laundry / kitchen / garage.  We had been living in a mess for a good month and hadn't managed to eat dinner on the kitchen table for over a week due to the orders taking over.

Didn't make the gingerbread until Monday / Tuesday which was a good plan - especially the giant gingerbread men as they took over the space in the kitchen big time.

Anyway, well done me, I got it all done in time and people seemed happy with what they got.  Maybe try to do this on Etsy as well next year as there will come a point when Ingleton people don't want or get bored with my stuff.