Christmas Day Part II

Dinner time!!!

Nick sets a beautiful table

Jasmine is NOT amused that dinner is still not ready yet...Ben on the other hand has already started!

Beautifully moist turkey

Delicious stuffing

crackers and cava

Presents!

Jas models her gifts from Ben

There's a story behind that headgear!  Nick was cleaning the kitchen as I was finishing off dinner...as I am not of the 'clean as you go' school, Nick decided to get all Marco Pierre White on me! "Clean down your station Chef!" he yelled as he banged a wooden sponn down near me....I think he was getting into character a little too readily!

Finally, the lego Jasmine had asked Santa for (though it was to share)!  And a huge box at that

Blankets and Button babies (courtesy of yours truly and Alex!)

Pippi with her artwork

Anyone fancy a game of 'Kerplunk!' ?

Look at that mess!  I was so good at not getting all anal.  I let it go, it is Christmas after all, the season of goodwill....

One worn out, but very happy, contented and Baileys-mellowed mummy

Christmas Day Part I

Looks like Santa and his reindeers enjoyed their snacks!

Before the kids went to bed last night, I told them that in order not to confuse Santa, they should stay in their own beds the whole night. Otherwise if he sees empty beds, he might think there aren't any children in the house anymore and not leave them any presents.....  Both Ben and Jasmine promised to stay in their beds.  Ben was quite reluctant though and took some convincing.  Needless to say, he came into our room in the wee hours.  He'd seen that Santa and the Reindeers' snacks had been eaten and surmised that, since he'd already visited, he could safely come into our bed.  I sent him back.  And I sent him back the second and third time he came in....each time telling him that he needed to see the night through.  To be honest, I was enjoying the unusual amount of free bed-space.  I did feel a bit guilty though when he sulked back to his room with his lip trailing on the floor.....

But soon enough, it was MORNING!!! and the kids came into our room lugging their heavy Santa Sacks...

Jas wanted to know why Santa didn't get her anything off her list.....(these kids are too smart!)  "Er, well, that's because he knew mummy was already buying something off the list!" I fudged...."oh, and he knows you like to do art, so he got you lots of crafty stuff instead!"  She accepted that (I even heard her telling her aunty Dawn that on the phone later!

Ben get's his snowglobe! And yes, he's still in that old costume!!!

This Christmas was one of Firsts for me.  The first First was that I went to church for the first time ever on Christmas day.  Now, having been brought up in a Christian home and family, you'd have thought I'd have made it before now, but I hadn't.  This year I decided I was going to make the effort - in keeping with trying to appreciate Christmas for more than the eating and presents.  I couldn't convince the kids though.  Or Nick.  They stayed at home in their pyjamas - Nick back in bed and the kids snuggling with Pippi......

The next first, was going for a walk on Christmas day.  The weather was beautiful.  A crisp winter's day with the most dazzling sunshine.  We decided to go for a walk around the lake at Blenheim Palace which is just 10 mins drive from our house.

Nick getting a stone out of Jasmine's welly

Ben does his best Wallace & Gromit grin!

Ahhh, what a lovely couple lol!

our future home.....

Christmas Eve....

Making some food for Santa's Reindeers.....

yes, Ben is still wearing that costume!

Santa gets a brownie and some baileys (or rather I get the brownie and MIL gets the Baileys!)

two not-at-all-tired children pretending to sleep so Santa will come....

Christmas day prep

So far I have made pate and homemade stock, baked a meringue for my Eton mess and baked toffee pecan brownies.  The spiced red cabbage is braising and the turkey is stuffed with herbs, carrots, celery, onion and garlic, as well as having a layer of herb butter under its skin - it is now waiting to go in tomorrow.  The stuffing is made and ready to go into the oven tomorrow and the pancake batter ready to be cooked for breakfast tomorrow.  All that is left is to par boil the potatoes and finish off a bit of tidying, then it's a glass of bailey's and a brownie!

A peak at some of the food.....

Chicken liver, fig and port pate.  Looks gross, tastes delicious!  And not for the diet-conscious either!

 

Turkey!

I also finally finished the kids quilts.......and despite the many amateur mistakes (it is only the second project I've done on a sewing machine), I am so pleased with how they look and very proud of myself.  A lot of hard work and time has gone into their making.  From the hours I spent trawling the internet and the local sewing shop choosing and sourcing fabrics, to the many hours I've spent in the middle of the night sat at my sewing machine (often times cursing it - especially when the thread kept snapping and I had to unpick and redo my stitches about 10 times!!!), to finishing the quilts by hand tying them and adding the buttons,  And here are my masterpieces.....

the front of Jasmine's quilt

a close up to try and show the different buttons used

a peek at the back

The back of Ben's quilt - I put the buttons on this side because they didn't look right againts the elephant print

A close up of the buttons - Ben got to pick these out for himself, though he didn't know what they were for...

The front. with the gorgeous elephant fabric from Japan

the front and back together

And how did I manage to keep the kids occupied whilst I have been beavering away?  Well, worried that they were too quiet, I went to go see what was up and found them like this

Now that is a really difficult puzzle, but they were doing really well (Ben is wearing the chinese suit from their dressing up box that he put on yesterday and went to bed in - he's still in it as I type...)

When they got fed up with this, they resorted to playfighting - cue tears and strops.  To entertain them some more I hid gold and silver chocolate coins around the house and had them go find them.  When they got them all, I allowed them to eat one every time they completed a task.  First task was to make their beds.  Second was to tidy the mess in the playroom.  Third was to watch a cartoon (there has to be some fun!) and lastly, before daddy got home and saved the day, they had to go and read a book each.  This left me to cook and blog!

Art as a gift

The kids made this gorgeous canvas painting for Pippi's (paternal grandmother) Christmas present.  It looks so pretty, but it didn't look like it would end up so nice at the start.......

I thought that it would be nice, and easy, if the kids did a finger painting together.  WE have done this on canvas before and it turned out really nice and funky.  I thought this would be the best way of making sure that the canvas wasn't 'wasted'.  The other option offered to the kids was for them to each do a self potrait, one next to the other, on the canvas.  Ben wanted to do the self-portrait, Jasmine wanted to do the finger painting.  Typical.  We decided that they would do a self-portrait with finger dots all around it. 

Well, Jasmine did this tiny little head in one corner and Ben did the biggest head you ever did see on the other.  It was not looking good.  At all!  I was so disappointed I'm afraid I couldn't contain myself and told them how rubbish I thought it looked - cue crushed faces.  Bad mummy!  I decided to just let them do what they wanted and we started to experiment with mixing the paints, splashing it on, swiping it on, swirling the brushes on the canvas and so on.  By the time they finished we had the above masterpiece, though I did have to threaten Jasmine not to go near the brown or black paints again (she seems to like them a lot)!  To finish it off and make it really special, we sprinkled a little coloured glitter over it whilst it was still wet.  I think Pippi is going to love it.

I do love crafting and arty things, and I know the kids do too.  So I make the effort now and then to do crafty activities with them to enable them to explore their artistic abilities.  Jasmine, in particular, has always loved to 'experiment' with paint and the like.  But I do find it very stressful.  I'm very much a control freak, I don't like it when they use every sticker over every inch of paper, or when they want to use my special paper to cut up and do sticking and so on.  I also have a firm idea in my mind how their creations should look, and they NEVER end up looking like that.  I try to micro-manage the whole thing and get stressed when they go all maverick on me.  Not to mention the mess they make.......I cried with laughter (and relief that I'm not alone in feeling like this!) when I read this blog post.  I could have written this myself, it so perfectly describes my experience/feelings on crafting with kids.  I am trying to be less wound up about it all and my new coping strategy is to just leave the room and let them get on with it.....

A message from PNP

From Portable North Pole that is.  I found this amazing site where you can put your child's details in and they get a video message from Santa!   I did Jasmine's first and when I called her to come and watch because Santa wanted to speak to her, she couldn't get here faster if she tried......and the look on her face when Santa appeared on screen and knew all about her and what she wanted for Christmas.....priceless!  Her face was a picture of awe, shyness, happiness and wonder.  You can see her message here

Ben was up next.  He had wanted to know why Santa didn't have a meesage for him at the same time as Jasmine, but I told him that there a millions of children all over the world that Santa wanted to talk to so he had to just be patient and that Santa would get to him soon.  He was also suspicious as to why Santa didn't look the same as he did when we met him at the Pre-school last week.....errrrm, well, because this is the real Santa of course! All the way from the North Pole!  Ben's video message is here

Ben had put a snow globe on his wish list to Santa, and I managed to find a little on the other day whilst out shopping.  I put this in the info page and Ben was so amazed to see this in the video.  I love this!

But we don't have a chimney!

This was said with a 'duh' kind of tone.  Ben had drawn a lovely picture of santa in the sky above our house, in his sleigh, complete with reindeers.  He explained what he'd drawn..."...and here's Santa's grabber, so he can reach down and put the presents straight into our house through the window...."  "But Santa comes down through the chimney" I explained patiently.  "But we don't have a chimney" replied Ben, also rather patiently.....Oh yeah, I forgot about that.  Well, actually we do have a chimney. A fake, for show chimney.  I don't expect Santa would have any luck trying to shimmy down it though.  Luckily Ben has designed him a grabber then.

On another note, I had an interesting exchange with Jasmine the other week.  Ben was getting ready for his weekly Saturday morning match when Jasmine came upstairs and announced that she wanted to be a football coach when she grows up.  She then asked me if football coaches earn a lot of money....I told her I wasn't sure but I think they probably do.  I asked her why she wanted to know.  "Because I want to be rich!" she declared.  Intrigued, I asked her why she wanted to be rich.  "So I can buy lots of clothes!" she replied.  I had to laugh.  That sumd Jasmine up perfectly.  Equal parts rough and tumble tomboy and girly girl.  I love it!

Jack and the Beanstalk

Each year the PTA pay for the whole school to go to the pantomime at Christmas.  Ben has already been twice and this year was Jasmine's - and my - first time.  As there were some spaces for adult helpers left, I went along and was in charge of a group of 4 children, including Ben, from Class 2.  One of Ben's teachers, who'd also been his teacher in the first year, told me that Ben had been really nervous about going that first time and that she had to sit and hold his hand.  There were a few children this year, Ben included, who said they were nervous about it, one of them even burst into tears during registration!  It never occurred to me that they would have any anxieties, especially as most in class 2 had already been twice with the school already. 

Despite this though, they all thoroughly enjoyed themselves - Jasmine wasn't scared in the slightest, even though the giant was a huge 12 foot animatronic costume that spoke like something out of the exorcist!  The costumes were fantastic, and the way that the children were encouraged to participate was genius.  Willy (Jack's brother) had the entire theater of children screaming 'WILLY!!!!' whenever someone touched his musical horn that he had left to one side for safe keeping.  Jack, Jill (Jack's love interest), Willy and the Dame (the mother) had all the kids standing, waving to one side, then the other, pointing at the Giant and screaming "YOU DON'T FRIGHTEN ME!!!" and then contorting matrix style to help them defeat the giant.  It was fantastic!  Sweets and flowers were thrown into the audience, the kids were taught a song to join in and sing, and teachers were brought in on the act (much to their own surprise and the kids delight).  The Oxford Playhouse put on an great show and we are already looking forward to the Cinderella production next Christmas.  I'm a convert. Long live Panto!!!!

Ben looking a bit nervous before the start.....

Jasmine looking not at all nervous before the start....

The only picture I was allowed to take - strictly forbidden during the performance :-(