Our Christmas and New Year

 Finally I have found the time to go through all the photos that I took over the festive period and to get around to blogging them!  I'm afraid that when life is busy my blog suffers and sadly I don't always have the time to catch up with you all in Blogland.  I'm hoping to get back to normal over the next couple of weeks and visit your blogs to see what you have been up to over the holidays.  I have managed to keep up to date with my IG friends and if I am ever absent on my blog you can find me on Instagram.

So this is what we have been up to since my last post:-

Out for a walk in our favourite woodland, just the boy, husband and myself.

 I was looking for fir cones to mend our wreath (my husband accidentally dropped it out of the loft!), but we also found some amazing fungi

 and played peek-a-boo with some deer.

 I used some of the cones for the wreath and the rest I used for our table decoration with some greenery and twigs.

 This year I decorated the living-room in green, white and silver.

 I found another silvered-glass tree (on the right).  This one was half price! :)

I forgot to take photos of some of our decorations this year! This ceramic tree sat on our kitchen window sill with some candles

and posies of mistletoe and holly.

 It only starts to feel like Christmas to me once the children are home and when I am in my kitchen baking mince pies with the candles lit and the fairy lights on over the top of the cabinets.

 With the children home I baked a few sweet treats including Krispie squares using my Nana's recipe.

 Gingerbread muffins

Millionaire's shortbread

 Sausage rolls

 Stilton and walnut puffs

Christmas Eve I decorated the Christmas Cake.

Before Christmas I took part in a swap organised by Tracy of Mad About Bags.  This is the cracker that I sent to Melanie my swap partner. 

Christmas morning I opened up my cracker from Melanie.  It was filled with all of these goodies.  Thank you Melanie.  xxx

I also took part in a Secret Santa Swap and I received these treats.

 My children knew what their gifts were this year - J chose a suit and M chose some DM's.  They had lots of other gifts from us and I still fill their Christmas Stockings and lay them outside their bedroom doors.  Nowadays I do this Christmas morning as they stay up later than me! :)

I also knitted gifts for my family.  Checkerboard Mitts for S, Eden Fells Hat and Scarf for J and Hitchhiker for M.  I was rather excited to learn before Christmas that I had won a prize on Ravelry from the lovely Helen of Curious Handmade for the mitts, so I am eagerly awaiting the postie.

 I did manage to have a break on Christmas morning, whilst the pudding was steaming and the turkey was roasting and enjoyed a hot toddy of Winter Jack and a few choccies! :)

 Sadly my parents were too ill to celebrate Christmas so there were only four of us at the table on Christmas Day.

M's face lit up when I brought in the Brandy butter as she loves it ... and no she didn't eat it all! :)

 My Nana H's pudding was a success.  I will post the recipe on My Recipe blog soon.

The best cracker novelty ever was this frog.  Ella loved it!

 Also a hit were these Christmas crackers in the evening!  

 Then it was time for our Christmas tradition of a family photo.

The official photos:-

 and the unofficial ones!

 We don't take ourselves very seriously! :)

J had a new helicopter for Christmas and enjoyed terrorising his sister with it!

Maurice just wanted to catch it!

After Christmas:-

M went to her boyfriend's and then he came back to stay.

I made a no-bake chocolate pudding with a white chocolate cream sauce.

 We watched Puss in Boots.  I love him!  We also watched How to Train your Dragon and Tintin over the holidays. 

We went to the cinema to see final Hobbit film.  I saw this Mini in the car park and the window sticker made me smile.

I enjoyed the film, but I'm a bit of a purist and preferred the original story.

Before the end of 2014 I managed to finish one last knitting project - My Version of Lind Cowl by Curious Handmade.  This one is for me.

M went out with friends for New Year's Eve and the rest of us stayed at home.  I'm such a party animal ... I did my ironing! :)

 New Year's Day and my parents were well and able to travel, so we had a second Christmas.  Lots of presents

and another Christmas pudding.  It was a trip down Memory Lane for my Dad as this was his Mum's recipe and it was the first time he had eaten it in decades as I only recently discovered that a cousin had the recipe.

They stayed for a few days and we played cards each evening.  Please excuse the kids in their pjs!

Ella was happy to have J home and spent a lot of time on his lap.

In case you were wondering, those aren't tattoos on his arm; we had just been shopping and he discovered some stampers in the stationery department and proceeded to stamp his arm! Boys!!

We were shopping for this:-

Inspired by photos on Instagram and Pinterest, I am going to fill out an art journal this year.  I'm not very good at drawing or painting, but I have decided that that doesn't matter, I'm just going to play and not be precious about it.  I've also decided that each page isn't necessarily complete and I can go back and add things when new ideas come to me.

So far I have covered the outside of the front and back of the journal.  I will add to these later.

 I have inked the insides and yesterday I started on my first page.

Yesterday I also took down the Christmas cards, having put away the decorations on Sunday.

My children are still at home this week.  We nothing planned, just a relaxing time together before they return to uni.  So that is me finally up-to-date! :)

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and wish you a Happy New Year and I look forward to catching up with all of your blogs and podcasts soon.

Best wishes, Pj x