Half Term Happenings

Last week was half term and it is a tradition of mine to start my Christmas baking at this time.

I made 6lb of mincemeat as per Delia's recipe.

Our Christmas cake, again a Delia classic.

It has had its first feed of brandy and is wrapped in foil in the cake cupboard. Yes, I have a cupboard just for cakes! :)

Eight mini Christmas puddings.
All individually wrapped and in the freezer. The recipe can be found here on my other blog.

I have well and truly begun to get excited about Christmas and have bought these two magazines.

But before Christmas there are November 5th and Halloween.

On Saturday our village had its firework display to celebrate Guy Fawkes Night. It was early this year, which nearly caught us by surprise. It didn't seem too busy this year and for the first time in 20 years we were able to stand at the front.

And on Sunday it was Halloween.

We have our very own witch's cat, aka Maurice.
I re-used last year's dead flower arrangement and draped it with cobwebs and spiders.

Other decorations included :- lanterns that I had previously made,
my homemade wreath,

a skeleton
and pumpkin skeleton that we bought in Florida,

homegrown gourds
and a very sweet witch that I received as part of a forum swap.

From our harvest of pumpkins I baked pumpkin cake,

pumpkin cookies, aka splats

and pumpkin & ginger muffins.

I also baked some chilli chocolate cupcakes.

And of course there were sweets

and Jack O'Lanterns.

I carved both sides of this pumpkin, which sat on the kitchen window sill.

This lantern adorned our dining-table.

And these three I carved and displayed by the front door to welcome the Trick or Treaters.

Happy Haunting, Pj x