Spoilt for choice

There were Christmas craft fairs everywhere today. We went to the one at Colby Woodland Gardens which gave us free entry and Claire of Cake Carousel was there with her delicious cupcakes which H9 and R7 are quite fond of sampling.

But we could have gone to two in Narberth - one foodie one vintage - or one at the Steiner School or another at the hall in Clynderwen.

Colby though is one we've been to before and after you've perused the stalls you can wander the pretty walled garden.

The fuchsias are still in full bloom, despite the fact it's only five weeks to Christmas.

The rill looks pretty all year round. The octagonal house at the top hasn't been open to the public before this year and all we've done previously is peer in through the windows.

Now though, they let you inside. It's a real sun trap and has clever trompe l'oeil pictures on the wall. You can hire it now for fully catered functions. I just have to work out some sort of a function I might need fully catering. It would be lovely here.

H9 and R7 had raspberry and white chocolate cupcakes and then bought bug catching pots from the National Trust shop. I bought beads and other sparkly bits and bobs for Christmas decorations from Carole at Begelly Beads. All the while the sun shone and it felt more like March than November.

A little bit of Christmas magic

My two have been a little unenthusiastic about writing to Santa this year. In fact they were getting me quite worried with their reticence.

"We trust Santa to get us some nice surprises," said H8 with heavy emphasis on the 'trust' bit. Hmm.

R7 accompanied her sister with an enigmatic smile.

Then yesterday two jolly envelopes arrived with the postman (stoically on foot as our driveway still resembles the Cresta run), one for each girl, postmarked Lapland. They were intrigued.

In it Santa told them he had lovely surprises for them and their friends, who were named, and that he knew about our chimney and was looking forward to whooshing down it on Christmas Eve.

"How does Santa know about my best friend?" said R7 wide-eyed. Best friends are quite changeable at this age and Santa knew the current favourite.

I am definitely coming to your house on Christmas Eve, wrote Santa in H8's letter, is there something you would like me to bring for you? Now let's see, you have a nice wide chimney so I can whoosh down into the fireplace without getting stuck.

H8 was very impressed indeed with that. We have an enormous Cimne Fawr. So that's how he's been getting in all these years.

You'll have a lovely surprise on Christmas Day, he added in R7's letter. When children make a special Christmas wish the wind brings their wishes all the way to the North Pole and whispers those wishes in my ear.

They were quietly thrilled with that. We always put their letters to Santa in the wood burner and send them to the North Pole using the medium of fire, sending the words on the wind as smoke. Obviously our method of communication works.

The got out paper and pens and wrote letters back to Santa.

Thank you for all of my presents over the years, wrote H8.

How did you know about my best friend? asked R7 (who still can't get her head round that one.)

So through the medium of the internet I would just like to record a colossal Christmas-sparkly thank you to Santa (and to his little helper) for a lovely bit of Christmas magic.

It's list time again

I’m a bit of a list maker. I’m a great believer in writing things down so they don’t get forgotten and crossing things off once they have been done.

Take this week’s list for example. Number two on it was ‘clear up the kitchen’.  Meaning ‘don’t stop at unloading the dishwasher, do the rest too!’

There were 18 items on the list. I have crossed off 10 of them. ‘Do the ironing’ is a perennial that gets transferred from list to list. If I wrote ‘hide the ironing’ it would be closer to the truth (and I could cross it off!) One of the more perplexing entries just says ‘send e-mail’ but not  to whom or what about so that one’s pretty useless.

This time of year, however, the lists multiply. I now have one for Christmas presents and another for R’s 7^th birthday party in a fortnight’s time. I have a list for vital things I mustn’t forget, like picking mum up from the station on Tuesday or renewing the car insurance for both cars.

Then there’s the Christmas card list, the things to do in the garden list and the list written by my mother to remind me how to look after her animals while she’s away. Perhaps the latter proves that the making of lists is an inherited trait…

Not forgetting, of course, the list of DIY projects for my OH and the shopping list I wrote for him of  things to get from Tesco on his way home from work today, and its sister list of ideas for the food we might be going to eat over the weekend.

I have even got a neat little list, on the back of an old envelope, helpfully written by OH with ideas for his birthday which is useful but I’ve got to keep that list safe until the end of next February.

Actually, with so many lists, I can see a time soon when I’m going to need a list of my lists… but perhaps that would be a list too far.

Christmas (w)rapping...

I like a bit of Christmas shopping. Especially in Narberth, like this morning, which included a yummy sandwich from Spanish deli Ultracomida (boccata with blue cheese, salad and honey). It was raining, but the staff in the shops were polite and friendly and there was a great feeling of good cheer all around.

The thing I like least about Christmas presents is wrapping the bloody things once you have purchased them. Wrapping one birthday present is short and sweet, but the onslaught of Christmas wrapping is enough to drive a woman to drink.

So, on reading The Observer's Ultimate Gift Guide on Sunday (unobtainable presents for ridiculous sums - except Dan Pearson's suggestion of Franchi seeds for gardeners - genius) I discover Lucy Eco Siegle's comment that 83 square kilometres of wrapping paper ends up straight in the bin.

Ah ha! I think. Do away with the stuff. It can't be burned (poisonous inks, plastic tape etc) so what use is it anyway? You just end up with a heap of ripped up paper (and loads of packaging, but that's a whole other blog).

Then there are gift bags. How has it come to pass that a present must be wrapped in lovely paper (and there are some absolutely lovely wrapping papers out there) but then it must be placed in a BAG? It is already concealed by the paper, so why the bag too?

I know I'm guilty of this - falling for a pretty bag - but it's not exactly eco-friendly is it? Presents just used to be wrapped when I was a kid. Now they're all bagged too. I've just confirmed this with a quick look under the tree. All of the presents except one tiny one are in bags. One bag even yells HO HO HO when it is opened. (A nasty bit of booby trapping that nearly killed me when I was having a surreptitious feel of my present... Somebody knows me well... It was 4am and quite the loudest thing on the planet at the time. I nearly had a heart attack.)

But what would happen if presents were not wrapped? Anarchy under the Christmas tree that's what. Absolutely no element of surprise and they'd all get mixed up because how would you attach the label? I can't see my children liking this much either. Part of the fun is the ripping off of the paper to expose the present beneath.

It's a bit like people really. You might fancy the pants off someone, but if they were walking around completely bollock-naked there's not exactly any element of surprise (which might be a good thing. That's a whole other blog too.)

So what is the alternative? I did think of newspaper, but having recently wrapped a pass-the-parcel in the stuff I know it has great rip-off-ability, but also great ink-transferability and it's not exactly the most attractive option.

Santa might consider just stuffing the stockings with unwrapped presents, but I'm not sure that would go down well with the small people. You'd open up the re-usable eco-friendly stocking (or pillowcase) and see straight away what it contained. No delight in unwrapping one package after another, even if it is only a satsuma.

I suppose one could just put the present straight into the gift bag too, but again there's no oooh-factor in that either.

This has me stumped. Any ideas?

A slight technical hitch...

I've had a slight technical fault with my car. This morning the oil fell out and landed in a big shiny puddle on the driveway.

Most inconvenient.

Apparently the oil filter was loose. That would explain the drips of oil on the driveway under the car for the last week. Much-Maligned Husband fixed it, of course, then got to drive it to work by way of a reward (it has a CD player; the other car doesn't.)

The whole scenario, of course, signals the difference between men and women. Men, I'm told (by M-MH) would have spotted the drips of oil and fixed the leak. Women, according to M-MH, would have ignored the leak, hoping that it would 'go away' or 'mend itself'. He is also firmly of the opinion that, had the warning light come on during the school run, I would have carried on driving until the engine seized. Now, I know I'm not that stupid, but it's best if he's kept in the dark about that.

"Why have a dog and bark yourself?" I told him, handing him a jar to open.

***

So Christmas is nearly upon us. Cinderella and Beach Barbie (aka Hannah and Rosie) have performed their school show three times now. They only had small parts, being at the littlest end of the school, but had a thoroughly good time. Parents and Grandparents sat on tiny little chairs and clapped enthusiastically through the pain of our numbing buttocks. The show ran for two hours as every one of the 103 pupils at the school had to have their moment of fame, but it was two hours of solid entertainment, with some astonishingly talented young performers. We smiled proudly and mopped sentimental tears.

The children are so tired today though after two consecutive evening performances. They were due to have a day off school to recover, by order of the headteacher, but instead they have a seasonal visit by Jane Hutt, Assembly Education minister, so had to be coaxed from their deep slumbers and made smart. There will be a pretence of working at the curriculum which has been abandoned for the last few weeks in favour of show business.

Tomorrow is the big school Christmas party when uniforms are cast aside with the curriculum and the fun starts again. Sion Corn (Santa) is scheduled to visit, perhaps for final confirmation that every one of the children has been most exceptionally good this year.

Back at home the presents are (nearly) all wrapped and the fridge is beginning to fill with the necessities for a seasonal feast. I'm not sure if everything is ready, but for once I'm so full of the spirit of Christmas, that I'm not too worried about anything else. There are a few outstanding bits and bobs, but I haven't got to worry about braving the festive crowds: I've sent M-MH off with a list!