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Continuing on with posts on Christmas Baking

I sat on the deck earlier this evening as I expected it to start bucketing and re-drafted my Christmas countdown plan. From tomorrow morning till when I fly out to Kiwi Land on Thursday everything that I need to do is written down; what I have left to buy, when I need to do, which days I’m delivering gifts to people etc. It’s all there.

It’s this time of year that I am thankful for having an oodle of Tupperware cake/biscuit/slice containers. Tomorrow afternoon is going to see the return of Operation Icing for this year. Which will see all available flat surfaces in this house covered with iced biscuits. 😀 so much sugar but oh so good.

I’m doing things slightly different from last year instead of doing the 25 cake boxes of I’m going to make little packages similar to what I did for “Super Hornet Day” for most people and continue to provide some morning tea each day and a few very close people will get a box like last year. I’m very proud of what I did last year but it was a mission and a half and I want my sleep this year.

Less of this.
Packed and ready to go, 156/365

More like this.
Super Hornet Biscuits, 251/365

This is the morning tea “basket” that I took to work on Wednesday.
treats for morning tea

I found the Pyrex dish at one of my favourite op shops a couple of weeks ago and with that festive gold trim, I knew it would get a work out over Christmas. I put an old glass jelly mould in the middle of the dish and filled that with white chocolate drizzled Lebkuchen men and filled the dish with Rum Balls and Sunshine Balls.

Everything of course went down a treat and the last two days I’ve taken Vanilla Rings and Loftkökur which have equally gone down a treat. One of the ladies I work with reckons my Lebkuchen men are the best “gingerbread men” she’s ever had, that was really nice to hear.

mmmm Loftkökur
Loftkokur

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December 2

Advent Calender

This is the advent garland/calendar that I made last night. I picked up these little pegs from Tiger (I liked Tiger, I wish we had Tiger here) when I was in Iceland, threaded a length of ribbon through the spring on the pegs, hung it beneath my shelves with the trusty 3M decorating clips and there it is. I’m using the little santa card to mark the day. This morning when I woke up, I moved the card to peg 2. It felt so good. I have a chocolate advent calendar at work. 🙂

I put up my little tree last night and was most distraught to realise that I left my box of miniature tree ornaments at Mum’s. I’ll be picking that box up pronto. I do have some suitable ornaments to place on each day till I pick that box up so not all is lost. I haven’t put the ornament for today on yet. Still a little while to pick the one that suits today.

The lights on my tree.
Oh Christmas Tree

I was having a little browse through the Tiger catalogue and I came across this hat … yep, this hat has so much more class and style than your run of the mill Santa hat.

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December Eve

1 star, 2 star, 3 star

Tomorrow is a lovely day. December 1, the countdown more officially begins for Christmas. On Sunday, I lit the first candle in my Advent wreath. Tonight, I’ve spent the evening making a big paper chain garland, not exactly sure where I will hang it but probably crisscrossing the ceiling of my room. The most important decision that I need to make between now and tomorrow is where I’m going to put my little tree this year. The first thing I did when I came home from work this afternoon was to polish the silver tray I put it on.

ahhh exciting times. This weekend I’ll be doing my first “official” batch of baking and making.

I’m a bit disappointed that I won’t get to put up my vintage tinsel tree this year but there’s not much point since I’ll be in NZ for Christmas.

Saturday night was the Christmas Party and oh it was a great night. Check out my hair!

Christmas Party

I got my hair done on Saturday morning and that really made me decide what I was wearing – I had about 3 options lined up and in the end settled on the frock in the above photo (obviously), it’s from Veronika Maine and I love it. It was my birthday frock this year. I found the glasses on ebay – got 3 pair of empty frames for about $15 (score). If I ever need glasses, I hope I can get lenses put in those frames … I wore a netted petticoat to pouf the dress out, pearls (of course) and on my lips was MAC Ruby Woo (that classic matte red lipstick). I’ll have to wait till I get some photos off the others to show you the shirt I got for N. It’s a classic.

We had everything from 20’s flappers to us Mid Century Girls to 80’s glam rock. Just about everyone put a lot of effort into their outfits which made judging for the various prizes very hard!

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ohhh Christmas is near, 37 days to go.

and before you say it is 38 days, I count down till the 24th, it’s the day we do Christmas.

I love Christmas. Without a doubt it is my favourite time of year. The last few days I’ve been working on some of my Christmas crafting and I’m doing my first batch of Christmas baking tomorrow. In saying all that though, this Christmas is going to be oh so very different to any Christmas past. There’s no Pabbi to dish out the rice pudding or to hand out presents from the tree. When we were in London on the way home from Iceland, we came up with the idea to go to New Zealand for Christmas to hang out with Mum’s sister and her family. Mum, Grandad and I are going (Matthew was not interested in the idea and is staying home) on the night of the 23rd and return on the night of the 31st. Will be great to catch up with my cousins and get to see the first great-grandchild.

I’m so tempted to start putting up decorations in my room but I’ll wait till Dec 1… though I’m going to hang a few porcelain snow flakes in the next few hours. They are white, you’ll hardly be able to see them hanging from the white shelf against the white wall …

This Saturday is the Christmas BBQ for the Icelandic Club -> hence the Christmas baking tomorrow. Really looking forward to the BBQ especially to catch up with one of my good friends who I’ve not seen in an obscene amount of time. I’m going to take along a big container of Loftkökur … mmmm. A funny note to mention, google Loftkökur and my recipe is normally the first or the second result to appear :). When I was in Iceland a few months ago, one of my sister’s told me that someone she knew had been raving about this Loftkökur recipe that she had found on the net and how great it was. She sent the link to my sister and my sister replied – that recipe is from my sister 🙂 so funny.

Loftkökur, ready to eat

In order to make Loftkökur, though I need the secret ingredient so I made a trip over to Mum’s today to pick up the Hartshorn salt, I also “borrowed” two of her biscuit trays … and I brought home some of my Christmas decorations.

mmm Hartshorn salt, there’s nothing quite like a sniff of Ammonium bicarbonate.
Smelly goodness

In other news, I go back to work tomorrow! yikes. I’ve got some crutches which make getting around easier. The first thing on the agenda for me to do tomorrow at work will be finish organising the Christmas Party – it’s next Saturday night. It’s themed, the 20th Century. There was too much debate amongst my two other planners between doing a 20’s theme or a Mad Men theme. I ended up suggesting let’s do the 20th Century instead. People can come dressed from whichever era they wish and if they don’t want to put much effort in they can just come as the 90’s.

I’m doing an early 60’s/late 50’s theme. I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of a few essential packages to arrive early next week for my outfit. All I have left to do is figure out my jewellery (will probably try to find some “pearls” at diva or the like) and practice my hair. I’m going to have to do some op-shopping before then though to find a shirt for N to wear. I’m so excited, can’t wait to see what outfits people put together.