Countdown to Christmas

I love Christmas!  This is our first Christmas in our new home, so I want to make it really special.  There is so much to do to get ready for it that I have to start in November... 

In this 'Countdown to Christmas' I will share all the lovely moments involved in preparing for Christmas here in Yorkshire, England.  I hope you will join in the fun

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Watch this space for recipes, traditions and special Christmas moments

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Countdown to Christmas #5: Throwing a Christmas dinner party

The house was filled with merry laughter, chinking glasses, and christmas songs from bygone days.  We dined by candlelight in my studio, transformed into a winter wonderland of silver and white.  Full post on our Christmas dinner party here

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Countdown to Christmas #4: Christmas cake - how do you make yours?



This year I made a very special Christmas cake to celebrate a very special Christmas - one when a close friend's dad just got the all clear from cancer. The best present anyone could hope for. So I made the cake, and I have sent it off to Cornwall to be iced by his two little granddaughters.Countdown to Christmas #3: The magic of baubles
This is a lovely old recipe, best made about six weeks in advance, but if you make it now and feed it brandy each day it should still be delicious come Christmas day. Enjoy! (Full post and recipe here)

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I love baubles. When I was little my dad would get down the boxes of christmas decorations and we would throw everything on the tree - the paper chains we made in school, the balding angel we called 'Arthur Scargill', the baby's first Christmas bauble my little brother (now in his 20s) had when he was a few months old, the gingerbread stars we had just cooked up in the kitchen. It didn't matter what colour anything was, as long as it sparkled.  Much as I love the haphazard colourful jumble of decorations on my parents' tree, I am planning something a little more colour coordinated for our tree this year!  More here

 

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Countdown to Christmas #2: Making tree decorations

Easy step-by-step guide for making these simple but elegant tree decorations from vintage papers

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Countdown to Christmas #1: Ornament Swap

If you like making your own decorations, why not join in Louise Gale's Creative Colour Challenge: Ornament Swap?  Lots of red, green and gold sparkly goodness being sent around the world.