A free-for-all Christmas prep diary, all food and non-food musings welcome!

[robinhood]

Feeling all Christmassy now as I have made Christmas cakes (one for us, two small ones for pressies) and some suet-free mincemeat (can only buy suet at the butchers then you have to hack it up yourself - rank) this afternoon. The kitchen smells lovely (and I had a taste of the mincemeat - lovely).

Need to make teachers' biscuits from the kids, but have no intention of doing that without them there to help and Anja's Christmas cookies and we're all set.

Oh, the kids pressies are wrapped too. Just need to get the tree (during the week) so that we can put it up at the weekend.

It would appear that we're doing Christmas Day here (BIL is working - he's a baker so overnight - but SIL won't commit to times or whether she wants to do Christmas anyway:sigh: so it's easier if we do it). Now, what to eat...

 

[anjuschka]

Nice one Laura. Yes the smell of the baking (and mulled wine!) makes a big difference, and now we have also put the tree up so it looks so much better than before with just a few decorations here and there. I have a sneaking suspicion it will start dropping needles before Christmas day! But it smells lovely too! Should have bought it earlier to store it outside in water but there was just no time... Attaching the pic from yesterday which I already posted into my diary.

Still to do: write cards, wrap presents, pack some parcels. No doubt missed some last posting dates already as usual...

 

[Maintainer]

Lovely pictures Robin... and how "nice" to learn at this comparatively late stage that you're cooking! Mind you, it's all far more low key here, isn't it? The one year we stayed in the country place for Christmas, hearing from my sister early morning on 24th who'd been 24 HR shopping in Tesco during the night and had queued for 45 mins to pay, we raced to Auchan for opening time at 8.30am... and found an empty car park! Totally empty! Aaah lovely!

I'm already dreading FOOD shopping in England... even though we're invited for the 25th, we'll need to eat the rest of the time (although... that's one way to handle this difficult time!!)

 

[anjuschka]

Yes the food shopping here is amazing... I recall having no such problems getting a few last minute items in Christmas eve a few years ago in Germany. Anyway most of my shopping is done, Veg mostly come delivered, Milk will be in the Freezer, bread is made on demand (plenty of flour and grains in stock), so I should manage to get away with one last low-key shop in the week before. I wonder if some of it has to do with storage space: I recall American friends complaining they had to shop every week as they had no space to store groceries from fortnightly shopping trips... So everyone buys last-minute? Or maybe everyone buys last-minute ready-prepared perishables rather than making them themselves? I have no idea WHY it's like this.