8 days til......................

This is my 8th  and penultimate Countdown to Christmas post. I have so enjoyed writing these posts and again would like to thank everyone for their kind comments; I really do  love reading  them. I also enjoy hearing how others celebrate this magical time of year and what your traditions are. My very last ** days til post for 2010 will be posted next Friday, on Christmas Eve, so please remember to come back for my final instalment.

We were finally able to decorate our Christmas tree last weekend. We have a real treasury of ornaments, some owned by my grand parents. As a said in my last countdown to Christmas post we chose our tree from the local nursery, with the reindeer close at hand!

We firstly attached the lights which immediately brightened the room......

Next was our fairy who has sat on top of our tree for many years. It's an interesting question to ask...do you have a fairy or a star at the top of yours?? ;0)

We also love to open our boxes of treasured ornaments and I wanted to share with you some of our special ones, both old and new. I know the history of every single ornament we own which makes them so unique and reminds us of our Christmas past.
The very 1st ornament my Hb and I bought was this dated Betsey Clarke ornament for our 1st married Christmas in 1981, the box is a bit bashed...

But this remains one of my favourites. Betsey Clarke was huge in the UK from the early 70s-80s, I still love these images and I really think she would sell well again now.

My Hb used to buy me birthday, Christmas and anniversary cards with these wonderful illustrations....I rather miss them.







Some of the oldest ornaments we own were my grandfather's who was born in 1898! He had these just after the 2nd world war, they are made of early plastic and although not hugely pretty they are special to me.

I also still have a very "kitch" elf which I can remember my Nan (born in the early 1900s) hanging on her artificial tree in the 1960s when I was a little girl. I know it is really quite brash but I do love hanging it on my tree. Here it is below. Very 1960s!!!

I also have some other rather old glass baubles....

My Hb and I have also  been lucky enough to visit the  German Christmas markets in Cologne and Nuremberg and have bought home some really beautiful  ornaments. Some are even limited editions. Here is a small selection....yes we have lots!!

As you already know from this post I am a great fan of the man in the moon and one of my oldest memories of buying an Christmas tree ornament was with my Mum, possible in 1968  (yes that long ago!)when I was quite small. We used to have a shop nearby which sold cards and gifts and one year I remember seeing wonderful man in the moons twinkling in the window. As children always do, I managed to pester her into buying a pair, a blue one for my brother and a pink one for me.



                                                                       


They are really showing signs of age now, this is my pink one.....don't tell my brother but I also have his!! You will spot his blue one on the tree at the end of this post.

Over our years of marriage we have also bought some other dated
ornaments. The one on the right was made for us at Covent Garden in London in 1990, my children were only 4 and 1 at the time and I can still remember walking around the craft market held there and us choosing this festive heart. Such fond memories.











I also have these other dated ornaments, not for every year but some.....

These are ones my Mum bought for me over the years on our Christmas visits to Harrods, I also have a really rare unusual Harrods man....

He is at least 25years old and survived so far intact. My Mum has one too but hers has a broken arm sustained during a fun New Year's party when our dancing got a little out of hand and the tree was toppled!!








This year I commissioned the talented Vita to paint me 2 wooden ornaments, 1 for mine and 1 for my daughter's tree and I was totally delighted with the results shown below. These are signed and dated and will be treasured by us.

And of course I could not possibly have a Christmas tree without pigs could I......

Now it took nearly 3 hours for us to put all our decorations on so this is just a small selection of our treasures that I have shared with you. Here is our finished tree, fully decorated. Please excuse the stark walls....we are in the middle of decorating.

Every bauble has a special memory of Christmases past and has been hang with love....a special tree every year for us. Each morning when I come downstairs to turn the tree lights on I get that wonderful smell of fresh pine .......mmmmmmmmm! The smell of the Christmas and it can transport me back so many years..

To finish this post I have found a little poem to share ...I hope you have also "decorated with optimism" your homes, as it suggests, and can hold the spirit of Christmas close throughout the year.


Recipe for Christmas All Year Long

Take a heap of child-like wonder
That opens up our eyes
To the unexpected gifts in life—
Each day a sweet surprise.


Mix in fond appreciation
For the people whom we know;
Like festive Christmas candles,
Each one has a special glow.


Add some giggles and some laughter,
A dash of Christmas food,
(Amazing how a piece of pie
Improves our attitude!)


Stir it all with human kindness;
Wrap it up in love and peace,
Decorate with optimism, and
Our joy will never cease.


If we use this healthy recipe,
We know we will remember
To be in the Christmas spirit,
Even when it's not December.

By Joanna Fuchs

Bye for now, see you on Christmas Eve ;0)

Jane x
PS I am not sure why the day shows as Thursday today... that's computers for you!

Crackers for Christmas

This post is in collaboration with the wonderful Mia in Finland and her Christmas Calendar. Please pop over and visit her delightful blog, she is posting a Christmas craft item every day until Christmas. For  my contribution I offered to share how I make my Christmas crackers. Perhaps I may even inspire you to have a go! Mia has not seen crackers before so for some of you this may be something quite new. Here in the UK they have been around since 1847!

My Christmas table would not be complete without having a cracker at every place setting. We always pull our crackers just before we eat and put on the silly paper hats and read the silly jokes. They never fail to amuse.
I have always loved pulling crackers on Christmas Day and finding the jokes and the small gifts inside, they are a great source of enjoyment. Over the years though I have found it difficult to find ones that are suitable for everyone who sits around my table. I started buying "fill your own" crackers but then a  few years ago I decided to start making them from scratch and they have "evolved" into the ones I make now.

Tom Smith invented the cracker in England in 1847 and there is a very interesting history if you have a look at the link posted here.

They are still sold in the shops today, these photos are from a display in our local garden centre.

To make my home made variety this is a list of the things you need.

1.Inner cardboard rolls/tubes found in kitchen rolls (this longer length is better that those from toilet rolls).
2. Crepe paper, 1 or 2 colours.
3.Cracker bangs, found on EBay or in craft shops like Hobbycraft.
4.Paper hats, as above.
5.Jokes... there are lots on the Internet.
6.Double sided sticky tape.
7.Foil tying ribbon.
8.Decoration for the front, of your choice.

I start collecting kitchen roll centres from late autumn and I use these both for the centre of the cracker and for forming the end pieces. Here follows my way of making them, please use it as a guide as no doubt I have omitted some of the process..I never did get onto "Blue Peter" as a little girl!

First cut a 1/4 off one end of a cardboard tube to use as the middle section (the kitchen roll middle is just a bit too long to use in its entirety)and place it between to 2 full length tubes. This middle section will contain the joke, banger, hat and present. The other 2 tubes are just used for forming "pull" ends, the paper tends to collapse if you do not have a former in place. ( NB Please note in the photo below the top tube should also be a kitchen roll length, I didn't have enough at the time I took the photos, a toilet roll tube can do the trick too.)

Unroll the crepe paper and lie it full width and then cut 2 pieces of crepe paper that will meet around the middle of the tubes.This can be either a single colour or 2 as I have shown here.
Then cut a small piece off the end of the colour paper that you want for the outside. I use pinking shears to give a pretty edge but ordinary scissors are fine. 2 sheets of crepe  paper works best as it rips well when you pull the cracker. Only using 1 thickness makes it too flimsy. Other types of paper either rip too easily or you struggle to pull them as they are too thick.

Take the middle tube out and fill it with a present, paper hat, cracker bang and joke. If necessary tie them with string or a rubber band to keep them in a bundle. Take care that you keep the cracker bang hanging out of either end of the middle tube, it has a great tendency to slip out! Put this filled tube back between the other rolls as in the photo above. The cracker bang  will protrude slightly into both the end tubes. The other contents should be kept inside the middle tube.





Have the shorter length of  paper on the outside and then roll up the papers around the 3 kitchen rolls . Seal them with sticky tape.

Next carefully pull one of the tubes out a little way to make a small gap. You need to feel the gap under the papers, so that you can tie off one end with curling ribbon.Repeat this at the other end so that the filled middle  tube becomes a kind of "sausage", sealed away ,with 2 open ends for pulling.

You can trim the paper ends if they need neatening up but be careful not to catch the end of the cracker banger which is inside. At this point it's also not a bad idea to write some small initials somewhere on it so that you know whose cracker it is! I put this underneath the cracker out of the way.

Now that you have make the basic cracker you can put any decoration on the front. These are just some suggestions.

I tend to try to match my crackers to the serviettes I have bought to use on the table for that year.These are my serviettes I have chosen this year featuring a tree with presents.

I decided to use green and red crepe paper and then to pick out the gold as an extra  wrap around the cracker (any wrapping paper works well). I have not quite finished the 8 that I need but here are 3 of them finished.

These will be sitting on the table on Christmas Day.

One final word of warning when making these................try to keep any naughty cats away as they SO love batting the paper,string etc-LOL

Naughty Billy, he just cannot resist getting involved.

Enjoy your crackers with your Christmas dinner, either shop bought or home made I am sure they will go with a bang!

Bye for now,

Jane (plus her assistant Billy) x

15 days til.....................

The days are flying by and this is my 7th Countdown to Christmas post. Today I would like to share our Christmas tree traditions. Since I was a little girl we have always had a real tree at home. When my Hb and I married even for our 1st Christmas we had a real tree in our little flat which almost filled our tiny front room, but it was so important to us to have one!
Last  weekend was the traditional weekend that we buy our Christmas tree, usually the 1st Saturday in December. We have a local nursery which always sells top quality trees and ours lasts perfectly right until its taking down on 12th night. This was our tree in 2007......

My Hb and I took a trip up to the nursery and it was delivered on Monday.  Usually we have 2 trees, one in the dining room and a "chocolate" tree in the hall. However this year we are still decorating the dining room and our bookcase is in the hall where that tree would normally stand. So this year we have just bought the one for the dining room. We will hang our chocs from the stairs banisters instead I think where we have our Christmas cards displayed.

We always chose a Nordmann Fir for the tree in the dining room as its leaf retention is fantastic. We first bought this variety in the early 1980s before it really caught on in the UK. Everyone traditionally bought the Norway spruce and indeed as a little girl this is the tree we always had and by the new year it was usually quite bald! Our chocolate tree is often a rooted spruce.

This year all the trees up at the nursery were nestled among the snow!

We tend to buy a 7 feet tall tree as that fits our room perfectly. The lads in the nursery are always so helpful and get as many trees out of their sacking as you want to look at. We chose a lovely bushy one with plenty of room to hang all my ornaments on.

We also decided to go into the Garden Centre as rumour had it that there were some real live reindeer visiting...we were not disappointed and found these sweet creatures...

One little girl standing next to us ask her Daddy which one was Rudolph....

I think this must have been him as he stood up to say hello. Their antlers are fascinating, they look so furry.













After admiring the reindeer I decided I would like to buy a small poinsettia for the house. Unlike one of my blogging friends Vivienne I am not usually one for houseplants, unless they survive on neglect, but I do like to have a Christmas plant in the house.

There were lots of unusual colours

But I decided I would like the traditional red colour.








 
 
So we completed our purchases and headed back to the warm. Usually we would be decorating our tree on the Sunday but as it could not be delivered until Monday it will have to wait until tomorrow. I can't wait to get the ornaments out of their boxes from the loft and will be back with another post very soon to share them with you. Some of my ornaments were owned by my grandfather and go back to the 1930/40s. I also still have the very first ornament my Hb and I bought for our 1st tree back in 1981! I hope you are all thinking about decorating your tree soon.....
 
Finally today I wanted to share with you this most romantic Christmas poem, it appears in my Christmas compendium book and I love to read it at this time of year.....enjoy....

♥ Mistletoe ♥

Sitting under the mistletoe
(Pale green fairy mistletoe)
One last candle burning low,
All the sleepy dancers gone,
Just one candle burning on,
Shadows lurking everywhere:
Some one came, and kissed me there.


Tired I was; my head would go
Nodding under the mistletoe
(Pale green, fairy mistletoe)
No footsteps came, no voice, but only,
Just as I sat there, sleepy, lonely,
Stooped in the still and shadowy air
Lips unseen - and kissed me there.

Walter De La Mare, 1873-1956

Bye for now,
 
Jane x

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(I am adding an edit here on Saturday afternoon as I have just heard the most wonderful news that dear Tom proposed to our darling daughter whilst at the summit of Kinder Scout in the Peak District today....I dedicate the above poem to them and send them SO much love and congratulations. What a wonderful Christmas present this is for us all xx)

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