The Final Betwixtmas of 2022

 

The final day of Betwixtmas and I am using it to take down some of the decorations.

The seed Advent calendar is down and I have found a use for the little bag that was in my recycled from last year decorations calendar ... I knew I saved it for a reason!!  It now contains all those tiny little pegs in case I want to do something with all the envelopes next year.

I like taking the Christmas decorations down bit by bit over the course of a couple of days as it means I can have a good clean up and wipe down of all surfaces before I go back to 'normal'.  Having this new hamper means that I can pack everything away and have Christmas once again stored decoratively on top of my wardrobe.

I really don't like it when people say you should take decorations down on this day or that day.  You should take your decorations down when you want to and when it suits your family traditions or circumstances.  Me, I like to start the New Year with some clean surfaces and a home that looks less cluttered and be well on the way to packing away Christmas until next December.

Two final books managed to sneak in before my book buying stops for next year.  They had been in my Amazon shopping basket for a couple of weeks and I thought, sod it, why not ... so I did.

I have a book I bought a while ago but saved for the New Year on my now freshly cleaned bedside table.  

It's ready for reading a poem a night before I go to sleep, and I need to get the book I started a few weeks ago and then gave up on for Christmas lighter reading off the shelves ... once I have moved all the Christmas cards and twinkly lights from the bookcase.

It's beginning to look a lot less like Christmas here in the Lodge.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my readers, commenters, blogging buddies, friends and family all the very best for the coming New Year.  

And if you are able to stay up until midnight tonight have a drink for me.  I've turned into a real lightweight and will most likely be tucked up well before the magic hour.

Here's to a new brighter and hopefully better New Year for us all.

Sue xx

Betwixtmas Day Five - One of My Special Treasures

 

On Christmas Eve reader Debby asked me in the comments section about the little pitcher/jug/creamer in my current header photograph and I said I would talk about it for her.

This lovely little ... and yes, it is little ... jug was a present from long-time blogging buddy John Gray of Going Gently fame.  He gave it to me on one of our many visits to each other, I think on that particular day he brought this for me, and then when he went home he left clutching jam, marmalade and half a dozen just laid eggs.

We've swapped other gifts over the course of the years that we lived in Wales, homemade Scotch Eggs hung on his door knob when he was sleeping after a bad nightshift spring to mind.  Which I seem to remember he ate sat on his tiny lawn wearing just his boxers ... nice to think that I gave him such good content for a blog post as well as something tasty to eat!!

Anyway the jug, it is vintage, approximately four inches high and made from pressed glass.  It's held tiny flowers, candy canes, a candle and once tiny sticks of celery on a buffet table, where it glistened in the fairy lights along the back of the table in just the same way that it has helped bring sparkle to my festive shelf and my blog header for the month of December this year.

And it's one of my treasures.

As is John's now long-distance friendship.

Sue xx

Betwixtmas Day Four - Finding Space for Christmas Presents ... and Dogs with Passengers

 

I brought my Christmas presents over from Alan's last night when I returned home after falling asleep watching television.  Today bit by bit I am emptying the shopping bag that I used to carry them over in.  It's hard to find room for 'extra' things when you live in a small space and your food cupboards are already fit to bursting and everything you have already fills the space that you have.

Luckily a lot of my presents were edibles, or in the case of this lovely Dandelion and Burdock cordial ... drinkable.  It's very tasty.

A few of the things Alan bought me, a couple of books ... I can always squeeze a couple more books on my bookcase ... a lovely little cabbage leaf dish.  And the apple that along with two satsumas was at the bottom of my stocking.

My sons and their partners had bought us, as requested, alcohol and edibles with some lovely toiletries as an additional surprise.  We now have enough gift bags to repurpose for next year and avoid the need for buying any additional wrappings.

I'd forgotten to download these images from Christmas Day off my phone.

Better late than never though eh!!

We bought these to make my Mum smile on Christmas Day, and watching the dogs trotting up her path and arriving in her bungalow with their passengers really did that.  The only hard part was trying to get photos of them, it's hard to get them to pose when one dog is full of energy after a long car ride and one dog is deaf.

But I have the proof that they wore them, and they didn't mind wearing their little passengers at all and were happy to leave them on for ages ... a lot longer than the socks we bought them a few years back. 😄

Sue xx

Betwixtmas Day Three - Guilty, Too Much and Who Knew

 

There's stuff everywhere and I don't know what day it is.

Well to tell the truth I figured out what day it was when the dustbin men came and emptied the black wheelie bin.  I had thought it was one day, but it turned out it was actually the one before!!  I felt guilty that they were back at work on their normal day while I was still engrossed in the tinsel-y fug that is the Christmas holidays.  Still eating candy canes and sausage rolls whilst watching old re-runs of  Christmas episodes of Midsomer Murders.

I do need to pull myself together and start to think of things for the very quickly approaching New Year.  I need to plan to eat my way through cupboards, drawers and freezer shelves of the mass/mess of foods that as usual I overbought in the run up to the big day.  I doubt the shops will see me in January or February except for a quick flit inside to buy bread or a pair of bananas.

I always buy them in pairs now, then if I forget to eat them before they turn the black that makes them too sweet for me to find appealing, I know they can be banana bread ... and I have developed a real taste for banana bread spread thickly with butter.

I knew my cupboards were getting too overly full when I needed to find a jar of silver-skin pickled onions to take to Mum's on Christmas Day.  I'm pretty sure they are in there, but it was easier to say 'Yes' to Alan when he asked if I wanted to accompany him to Aldi on his last shopping expedition and buy a new jar, than it was to buckle down and empty the bottom cupboard where I think they lurk at the back.

If I do eventually find them I'll let you know ... if I don't the journey was necessary and not just lazy, we'll see!!

The sweetie drawer is full of chocolate, and when I have a lot in I don't eat as much ... now if there was just one bar it would be gone in a flash.

I have so much food in that I really cannot for the life of me think of meals to have, and I find myself standing at the fridge staring at the shelves for far too long.  I should menu plan ... but that is for the New Year, for now I'll stand and stare and maybe have some garlic bread followed by a couple more candy canes for my lunch.

After all it is Christmas!!

Sue xx

Betwixtmas Day Two - Cartoons = Happy Dogs ... and Christmas Dinner

 

The dogs, and sometimes Ginger too, love cartoons.  Especially the ones that are about animals or strange humans.  This morning Mavis has been glued to The Gruffalo's Child and now she is watching something about a big white puffy robot type thing.  I don't know what it's called but it's loud, musical, has lots of voices and sudden action ... just her sort of film.

Suky has been dipping in and out of it, with the sound of her snores in-between the bouts of action drifting along the hallway as I sit typing this out.

Ginger, being King of the Furries, has claimed the best seat in the house, and the dogs are cuddled up in the weak December sun directly opposite the television.  Mavis is going to be exhausted by the end of the film as she usually sleeps away the morning after their canal-side walk.

Luckily for her we are no doubt going to be sitting still watching something not too actiony after we have our Christmas Dinner at one o'clock ... the one that Alan is doing single-handedly for the first time ever.  She should be able to catch up on her sleep then, if I can find a film with no loud action, no animals and no unusual humans to catch her attention.

Did anyone watch Call the Midwife Christmas Special last night, I thought it was a lovely episode.

Sue xx

Betwixtmas Day One - Dairy Free Cheese and Garlic Jam

 

Last year I coined a new word, well I think I coined it, who knows maybe it's real.  

When I tried a Google search I just got Twixmas, which sounds like a poor relative of my previous favourite chocolate bar.  A later search gave me an entry in the Urban Dictionary that yes, does describe it as the week in-between Christmas and New Year.

There was one more delivery that arrived on Christmas Eve, just in the nick of time for Christmas nibbling.

A wonderful selection of dairy-free cheeses along with some crackers, some dairy-free handmade butter and a jar of the most delicious looking garlic jam.

All this was a treat I bought for myself at the start of December from I AM NUT OKAY not really realising that the cheese etc would be sent out in Christmas week.  The poor company had a headache and a half getting their deliveries sorted out with all the postal strikes and heavy use of alternative couriers.  But they did it and I got my lovely cheeses.

They are now all safely filed in the fridge drawer in date order, so that all this deliciousness gets eaten and not wasted.

I hate small talk, but I love a few words that really make you think.

Sue xx