This week has been full of food and fun as we celebrated with our family Christmas festivities. The boys seemed happy with their presents so I could breathe a sigh of relief.

In the run up to Christmas we had two lovely edible deliveries, so that meant even more food to get through! However, I am still planning to ease off the sugar come January the 1^st, so I need to eat all my favourite treats before then…

Winter Sparkle Afternoon Tea

One of my husband’s 40^th birthday presents had been a Piglet’s Pantry Winter Sparkle afternoon tea voucher. I ordered it to arrive this week so we could really kick off our Christmas festivities. This wasn’t our first rodeo with a Piglet’s Pantry afternoon tea. However, it was nice to try a different version with their winter themed afternoon tea. The scones this time were dusted with cinnamon so smelt even nicer when warmed in the oven. My husband loved the cranberry and rosemary scotch eggs, but I think I prefer the plain ones they normally do. The little gingerbread man on the sticky toffee ginger cakes was very cute. Although their carrot cakes are still my favourite.

Food Hamper

I also ordered a food hamper from a local business, you can see some of the contents above. The pear and apple chutney was very tasty perfect for the cold meats over Christmas. My boys really enjoyed the jammy shortbread stars. I reluctantly shared out the all butter mince pies. It’s nice to support local businesses in the run up to Christmas.

Christmas Dinner

I had been documenting all the Christmas meals I had in the run up to the actual day! You can check out a previous one in this weekly update. But my favourite Christmas dinner has to be the one my brother made on the 25^th. He had all the trimmings; I really enjoyed his cauliflower cheese and red cabbage. My mum buys all the meat from the local butchers. Although I am not as keen on all the dishes afterwards, that is one advantage of eating out!

Christmas Painted Rocks

I went on a walk to see all the fabulous Christmas painted rocks. I like how they make new painted rocks each year and it helped me get into the spirit of the Christmas festivities.

Broken Oven

This week our oven broke, it was such a shame to have such a big expense so close to Christmas. Luckily, we were eating at my parents for Christmas as although we managed to source a new oven, the hob still hasn’t been connected yet! We need a LPG conversion kit which they didn’t bother to send! It is a bit frustrating, but I am glad we can use the oven now. A few days of takeaways was nice, but I wouldn’t want one every day!

COVID

My son was granted his freedom again after his self-isolation was over and none of the rest of us caught COVID, hooray! We were all glad to put week 50 behind us. Also, I was very relieved not to catch COVID after having shared dessert with him earlier in the day we found out he had it.