Blogmas Day Twenty Five - Happy Christmas to You All

 Wishing all my readers, friends, family and blogging buddies the very happiest of Christmases.  

May your day be everything that you want it to be.

And always remember the very best present we can give ourselves and our loved ones is time.

Take time for yourself at some point today and breathe in the wonder of the season, or just of a simple December day.  

However you celebrate, or chose not to celebrate, take part of this day for yourself.

Happy Christmas from Sue, Alan and Ginger xx

Blogmas Day Twenty Four - Christmas Memories

 

Christmas is the time of year that memories come flooding back.  Of good Christmases and bad, hopefully the good outweighing the bad.  We have had many and all of them hold a place in our hearts.

Our Christmas Piggies always used to make me smile when we lived in Wales, and this photo reminds me of the many family get togethers at Christmas time, with food being laid out buffet style so that there was no pressure for anyone to arrive at set times.

I saw this photo on social media and it reminded me immediately of the year me and my brother got a mesh stocking each in the mid-sixties.  The first year they were filled with the plastic toys that they had come with, which I thought was brilliant.  Then in subsequent years my Mum and Dad filled them with little toys and things that they had bought specially for the stockings.  But as a child I had loved the plastic 'tat' of the first year the best.  😄

Each year we would get a selection box, always a real treat to have all those lovely sweets all at once.  Oh how I loved Spangles.  Look at the prices in this image, we were obviously just into decimalisation!

Me and my brother posing with our presents in the late 1960s.  We opened everything in our bedroom and then later had to put everything under the tree for a photo opportunity ... my Dad loved his camera.  It also kept us out of the way while Mum cooked the Christmas dinner in the tiny kitchen/living/dining room.  

We lived in just three rooms for the first thirteen years of my life, while I think of them as reasonably happy years my Mum's memories were always very different.  But I do remember the stress she felt, the anger of cooking a full dinner and my brother refusing to eat any vegetables.  So when I had children of my own I always made sure that they shared the preparation in some small way and shared in every part of Christmas Day ... I do hope they have good memories of that time.

It's lovely to have time to think about Christmases past, be they good, bad or indifferent they were all a turning point in the year and a very special celebration.

A little smile for Christmas Eve.

Sue xx

Blogmas Day Twenty Three - Charity Shop Purchases and Homemade Goodies

 

I called to two of my favourite charity shops while I was in town last week.  One day I was in town to visit the dentist and called to the Age Concern shop and the other I was in town with Alan and nipped into the local Children's Hospice shop.

In both I got a book and a little something that caught my eye.  It's Christmas time and it's a nice way to support any charity, something for me, something for them and a 'please put the change in the donation pot'.

I definitely felt more charitable towards them than the dentist did towards me!! 

At home after putting away the new shopping that I showed on yesterday's post, I used the last of my old bananas to make a batch of Banana and Walnut cakes.  Half each for me and Alan and nothing gone to waste.

To make a bit of space in the freezer I also took out all the lemon ends and apple cores and made a little batch of Compost Heap Jelly.  Two of the little jars were then labelled ready to go into Alan's stocking.

 A bit of charity, a bit of frugality and a lot of satisfaction.  

Sue xx

Blogmas Day Twenty Two - Cheap Veg and Other Shopping

 

The supermarkets loss-leader vegetables are a brilliant way to make the Christmas dinner a very budget conscious affair.  Each of these vegetables, 2kg potatoes, 1kg carrots, and a red and a green cabbage were just 5p each.  

The 'supermarket wars' as they are known at Christmas time, have been going on here in England for quite a few years now, their main aim is for the supermarkets to get you into THEIR doors and not their rivals, and hopefully once there you will be spending lots of money on the other foods that they have actually increased in price in the run up to Christmas Day.  I guess it works sometimes, although some canny people do visit multiple supermarkets to pick up the various other vegetables on offer, before settling back in their favourite one to do all the shopping. 

It's being stressed loud and clear this year that it really is the supermarkets absorbing the price cuts and not the farmers ... I do hope that this truly is the case.

Anyway as soon as I got home with my shopping and my 20p worth of vegetables I set to, to make sure that they would last as long as possible.  First they were all left to 'breathe' for a while out of their plastic bags.  Then the carrots were checked over and laid on a  double layer of kitchen roll before being popped into a Stayfresh bag ready for the fridge.

The potatoes had a similar treatment.  I was not impressed with the quality of the potatoes at all to be honest, but hey for that price does it really matter!!

They are now all safely stashed in the fridge.  Just because these were cheap to buy it does not mean that anything will be wasted in my home.

I didn't pick up the other items on offer as I don't really like parsnips ... or those little green round bullets that are the food of the devil.

The rest of my shopping looked like this, including a few things that I really needed and a few treats for myself.  The Iceberg lettuce is an absolute beauty it weighs so much, I have never had a lettuce that heavy in my life ... another vegetable bargain.

My receipt for posterity.

Now apart from nipping out for some fresh bread on Christmas Eve that is my shopping completed.  Alan has an order from Booths to pick up that morning which includes a couple of little desserts that he has treated us both too, and then he also is all done and dusted.

Sue xx

Blogmas Day Twenty One - Will I Make It Until Christmas Day?

 

I already have so much of what I need, and these days there is little extra that I want to add to that, but consumables or usable things that I like to use regularly are always very welcome.

So every year for Christmas, almost since the year we met over twenty one years ago Alan has bought me a supply of my favourite body cream for Christmas, and occasionally for my birthday too.  Sometimes it's six tubs and sometimes it's three ... so I do get a surprise.  My gift comes in those particular numbers as very regularly this particular cream is on offer in Boots the Chemist on a '3 for the price of 2'  offer, and sensibly Alan takes advantage of this.

Why do I like this one so much, well it doesn't bring me out in a rash as so many scented creams tend to do, and almost as important I can remember the scent of it.  So with me still having no sense of smell I at least know what I smell like immediately after a shower.

Last year he bought me six tubs and I still had one left over from the previous year ...

 

... this is what I have left this morning.

Will I make it until Christmas Day? 🤞

He used to buy his Mum Fenjal products every year without fail, and I used to wonder if she was happy with that.  Now I know for sure that she probably was really happy, and Alan is happy that there is at least one present that he doesn't have to think too much about that he knows will always make me happy.

Sue xx