Its Christmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasssssss!!!!!

 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.

Luke 2:11

Merry Christmas xxxxx

Only two more sleeps.....

Christmas Eve tomorrow and I am still being very grown up and not getting over excited.

I have three more presents to wrap, and they are "Santa" presents, which have to be wrapped in different wrapping paper.  When B was younger, she wondered why Santa used the same wrapping paper as us, so as she was always so quizzical we made sure that "his" presents were wrapped in different paper.  One year she also questioned why the sweets in the stocking were the same as the ones we had in our house, so we also had to get different sweets and chocolates for the stockings too.

As J is of the same nature as B, we thought we had better be safe than sorry.

We are trying to keep things fairly simple for J, so he doesn't get too over excited and have a meltdown, and it is actually very tiring, as the world around us is going crazy for Christmas.  So we are baking, watching films and staying in the warm as the weather is rather rough at the moment.

So our weekend consisted of Christmas visiting, starting with my nieces and nephew at M's parents and catching up with his younger siblings, which was nice.

In the afternoon he had great fun with his Dad making lego for most of the afternoon, and I was quite impressed with my husbands lego making skills

Air Craft Carrier

Yesterday we visited the Christmas Farmers Market, didn't buy anything, just tasted and listened to the band playing Christmas Carols

We also had a mini Christmas celebration this weekend, as my sister and her partner were visiting  from the North (of England, not Pole).  We went over for Christmas Tea yesterday, and opening of presents, where I received two books and a hot chocolate mug set.  J was very pleased with his tool bench

Had lots of fun with Jesse the dog

and just loved helping his Ampy with the real fire

Today we have made Milk Chocolate and White Chocolate Bark, Chocolate Snowballs and B has made some more mince pies.


Tomorrow, staying in probably, as the weather, as Dean Martin sings, outside is frightful and my fire is definitely delightful.

Christmas Home Ed Party and Christmas Baking

On Wednesday this week we braved the rain and winds to attend our local HE Group Christmas Party.

In Christmas's past, these parties were usually organised on a big scale, with Christmas Presents under the tree, parents dressed as Christmas Elves and Fairies, Lantern Walks, organised Carol Singing and even one year a paid children's entertainer.  Also weeks before,  the preparation for the party included making Crackers, hats, lanterns and decorations.  Usually there were about 50 children, in a quite small space.

This year, due to lots of parents branching out and setting up other groups, and our own little group no longer being the one and only group in our City, there were 9 families, with three visitors whose children have now gone onto College, and  who ran the group in its earlier days.

But despite it being low key, and the weather being so very bad that no one could venture outside, it was still a great party, with enough food, lots of Christmas craft activities and musical games.  Also one parent brought in a flask of hot rum spiced with apple and cinnamon, it was delicious.

Back home in the warm, we have been Christmas baking

B made mince pies, shortbread and chocolate chip cookies

J and I put the marzipan on the Christmas cake we had made

M and J made a Gingerbread House

Today, more baking, Banbury Cakes, Cinnamon Cookies, White and Milk Chocolate Bark with Sprinkles and icing and decorating the Christmas Cake.

Christmas Holidays

Friday was the last day of "term" for our family, with a typical end of term week, where a lot of things started to slack as we are all getting into the festive mood.

This week we went into the HE Group to make lots of different Christmas decorations, and the weather was very mild so we spent a lot of the time outside in the park enjoying the sunshine.

J has been occupying himself with plain paper and felt tips.  He drew a great picture of a Doctor Who scene, with Dr Who himself, the Tardis and  Slavenes

He also made Cookie decorations for the tree, whilst wearing his Rudolph glasses

Also had fun climbing trees

We have now reached day 16 of our Book Advent Countdown, this week we have read:-

As we are currently watching The Polar Express, this book will be next on the list to be opened.

On Saturday we went into our nearest City to get the remaining presents.  It did get  bit hectic towards lunchtime, and M ended up going back to the car with J as it got a bit too much, but in the end we got all the presents sorted, bar one  (my Mother of course).  So one more to get!

On Sunday it was up early for an extra early KO for an away game, where it rained continuously, and our team won.

We met up in the evening with the other players and their families for a Christmas Meal which was very enjoyable and all the kids looked like they had a great time.

Today - bit of a stay at home and wash a load of muddy clothes type of day.  J hasn't even changed out of his PJ's.  We did manage to get the food cupboards ready for our Christmas food shop which will be arriving on Thursday.

Tomorrow, present wrapping, card posting and Christmas baking.

Christmas Decorating and Craft

So we didn't put the decorations up today as planned, we were a bit impatient and went out and got the tree on Monday

We haven't  put the ceiling decorations up yet, and of course the fake snow, but hopefully we will be doing that tomorrow afternoon.

The Christmas Art and Craft table was set up during the week, and consequently there is glitter everywhere!

J has been painting winter scenes from his Usborne 100 Christmas things to do 

We went to the HE Group this week too, more Christmas crafts going on, followed by a visit to the Scrapstore to get more materials for the craft table.

He has also made a start on the Christmas packs I printed out, which includes colouring, counting, writing, sequencing and puzzles.

We are now on Day 7 of our Advent book Surprise. today it was

J had never heard about Charlie Brown before, so it took him a while to get into this book, but he did like the little props that went with it - the blanket, tree and bauble.  Afterwards I played him a Christmas special on You tube, which he enjoyed, and both M and I had forgotten just how funny the series used to be.

He is really enjoying the Advent book surprise, more than the chocolate calendar and the treats.

So far this week he has opened:-

So here at our house, we are definitely getting into the Festive Season :-)

Advent

We usually put our decorations up on the first weekend of Advent, but as we were away all day on Saturday, and rugby dominated yesterday, we will be decorating our house next weekend.

So this week I will be making all sorts of decorations with J, using the Usborne 100 Christmas Things to Make and Do book.

J has started on his Advent treats.   He has a Chocolate Advent Calander which is based on the true meaning of Christmas, an advent countdown, which starts from number 24 so he knows how many days are left until Christmas Eve and also he opens a Christmas book each day (just about managed to get  24 books from the Charity Shops and Amazon, plus had a few from last year).  He started with Lego City - Save This Christmas.  It was a bit of a naff story, but he liked it because the story is about lego figures.

We got the idea for our Advent Countdown treats from Glittering Muffins (we turned ours around the other way so he cant see the treats inside).

So business as usual this week, study for the older two, but as we are in the Christmassy groove, am scaling their study time to mornings only.

Have a few activities to print out for J

The Twelve Days of Christmas Pack  which will go alongside the book he will open this week
The Nativity Pack

The Polar Express Pack as this is also included in his Advent book collection, and we will also watch the film as he hasn't seen it before.

The Reindeer Pack

The Christmas Pack which is to go alongside the book - "There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Bell" which he will be opening today.

All of the above is from the 3 Dinosaurs Blog on the Printables tab.


Today I  attempt to make a start on deep cleaning the house before the decorations go up, starting as soon as I get up and everyone is awake, fed, washed and dressed, as I have a friend coming round for coffee this morning.

This evening I will be writing out my Christmas Cards, whilst sipping a small glass of Baileys. x

Waves Ta Ta to November

The last couple of weeks of November seemed to have whizzed past.

My oldest child turned 15

I know I am biased but she is just so pretty.


The Christmas lights in our nearest city got switched on, and what chaos that was.  We got stuck in a mass crowd, and quite frankly, I feared of a stampede.  J was on his Dads shoulders and was getting distressed as I was getting farther away from him.  So he did the coolest of things which immediately cheered him up - he crowd surfed.  It was the only way M could get him to me.  Very funny.  J did get to see Santa and after the big switch on we managed to get back to a smaller gathering, where there was fake snow - and great fun was had by all.

The two photos below are more or less the same, but the first one you can see a big fake snow flake falling down towards M's head...

 LOL - now it is over his eye  (I really dont know why I find this so funny)

Our next switch on was our little towns Christmas Parade last Thursday.  Quite a few people turned out for the event, but I am not quite sure what happened to the children in the parade, and the promise of snowflakes and elves and Santa himself.  We all stood on the side of the pavement looking down the High Street for the Parade to begin, I could hear singing, then all of a sudden we realised that the Parade was on the pavement, and I think we may of ended up in it as we couldn't get out of the way in time.  Anyway, it kind of consisted of older people, as in older than me, dressed in Chirstmassy clothes, playing instruments and dancing.  Also there was a man with just a scary wolf mask, what was that all about.

Anyway, onto the switch on of the big tree in the square, and after three attempts the lights came on.

Then Santa appeared, giving out very hard boiled sweets to all the children.

Onto the late night shopping, which although only a few shops were open, it was very festive, with most shops offering sweets, and my nearest Charity shop servicing non alcoholic mulled wine, which was really nice and even the carpet shop were giving away cakes.

Yesterday it was the Mulled Wine and Mince Pie evening at the Rugby Club, and it looked really festive and cosy.  I didn't have any of the mulled wine as I already had one glass and we had to be up early for the Coach trip to Twickenham.  J did have several Brownie bites, smothered in Clotted Cream, and the spoon in the clotted cream only had to get changed once after he spooned  a big dollop into his mouth!

Twickenham  Barbarians v Fiji

Not to early a start, had to be at the Club for 8.15am.  It was a fun journey up, and managed to keep J occupied, despite leaving his DS in the car!

Had great seats with  a brilliant  view as we bought our tickets earlier on in the year

Journey home was fun, lots of singing, drinking and with a lot of teenage boys on the bus, farting too!

And that concludes November x