Well Christmas is done and dusted and I am now firmly in harness for the New Year celebrations. We had two, delightful, “leftover days” when the denizens of Ruthven had to fend for themselves and I lolled on the sofa with an audio book and a plate of bijou snacks but those days of hedonism are now over. The first of the New Year guests have arrived and mass catering is back on the agenda. Keith has carted them off (though they showed little resistance) to the pub and I shall sneak a little me-time to report back on yule tide festivities.
This year I decided to save the planet by not arranging flowers with florists oasis (which is apparently a very bad thing) and having made this quantum leap I went all in and bought no flowers. Instead, mum and I feloniously purloined giant cones and holly with berries from the Hirsel, under the cover of walking the dog and then pranced around the garden with secateurs and a giant trug collating raw materials. I then clipped strips of chicken wire from the stash I have amassed (in case of just such an event) with fence cutters and made my own “arranging balls”. Actually it worked a lot better than I thought it would, though I did have to discard the promising looking Corsican hellebore buds on the grounds of smelling of cat pee. This delivered a host of vases and what have you for the house. I couldn’t see my way to using chicken wire dfor a table candle arrangement though. Instead, I made small wreath frames from red dogwood pruning and attached a host of cones, beads, buttons and what have you. By this stage I was very much on a Blue Peter roll and went on to make cone and bead thingumy’s for the candalabra as well. Overall I was pleased with the effect and, if I can find somewhere to put them, next year’s table decor is rather in the bag! Saving a bit of time on floral art will probably be a good thing as the candle making experiment also turned out rather well and so making Christmas candles has added itself to the list….
On the present front, many slippers, socks, pants and bars of marzipan were gratefully exchanged. Keith, Lachlan and Monkey declared their Christmas jumpers exactly what they wanted. (That said, I caught Lachlan wearing his inside out yesterday. Having pointed this out he now likes it even more rightside out. As it is a cable knit I can’t fathom how he managed this…). Keith and I somehow managed to buy each other exactly the same book, which says something (though I am unsure what). The stand out winning gifted though was Auntie Veronica. She supplied a veritable Kim’s game of mystery items that had us guessing for two days and a natty array of matching snoods and hats (in Mum’s case sewed together in case two separate items proved overly challenging). We plan to wear these to rob the garage. Pending the great garage heist, I wore mine on a very sleety dog walk today and the faux fur niqab provided admirable protection. This is a keeper.
Christmas dinner went well, even if the chief cook and bottlewasher does say so herself. Hilarity levels were high and poor Ishbel, when she came off her shift at A&E, had to endure some rather slavering yuletide messages from around the table. Lyra has let it be known that she is not keen on crackers or whistles but does consider stuffing balls to be one of life’s great good things. We attempted to clear the cobwebs with a Boxing Day walk, but whilst lovely, this proved insufficient and it took a couple of Berocca tablets and and an early night all round to restore vim and vigour.
It sounds like the drunkards have returned so I shall now sign off…
Pretty setting.