Advent and Christmas photos

I know, I know. Waaay too late really. But you want to know what I was doing when I wasn't writing Advent blogs, don't you?

We had an Advent candle on the dinner table every night, and said a prayer together (which after ten days Toby could recite along with us; we were quite impressed). Also Toby had an Advent calendar. Yay, chocolate!

We paid a visit to a Christmas fair in Matlock, about 45 minutes north of here. Lots of handmade stuff to buy, and Toby got his first ride on a roundabout. He rang that train bell all the way round!

We put our Christmas lights up, and had many evening walks around the village admiring other people's. This is Findern village church looking very atmospheric.

We made and decorated a Christmas cake. I kept things simple and used coloured fondant and cookie cutters, which was dead easy and meant Toby could help. We made gingerbread cookies with the same cutters, and stuck fondant on top of those too.

We attended our first ever Christingle service at the local church on Christmas Eve. Everyone gets an orange with a candle and other things stuck in it, to symbolise Jesus as the light of the world. And then everyone prays hard that their kid isn't the one to set themselves or anyone else on fire.

We made Christmas crackers. This was one of those "fun family activities" that I thought would be really nice, and instead turned into a "it's Christmas Eve and we still haven't made those stupid crackers!" activity, where Mum and Dad were grimly assembling the things while Toby got bored and started trying to shred all the components.

We put our (rather large) presents underneath our (rather small) Christmas tree.

We ate cranberry orange muffins, ham and eggs for Christmas morning breakfast.

We opened presents, of course! This is the first year that Toby has been old enough to be excited about the whole thing, and it was great.

Hand-knitted mittens and scarf from my mother-in-law!

For some reason Graham got lots of beer.

We ate Christmas dinner. I think Toby enjoyed his Christmas pudding and custard, don't you?

And we had some friends over for Christmas tea. Next day, it was off to see Graham's parents for a few days, and back just in time for my parents to come visit. Busy but fun!

Comments

Greece is the word! Part 1: Athens

The last few times we have been on holiday, my family has asked, "Mum, are you going to blog about this one?" It's felt like an overwhelming task. For a start, we now have FOUR phones with photos on, rather than one digital camera. Also, I regularly write quite long blog posts about three-hour walks. How on earth will I summarise a full week's holiday? But this time, I thought I should try. It's one of the most enjoyable holidays we've had in a while, and I've definitely done too many Peak District posts recently. Everyone needs a change of scenery. So here we go, jetting off to Athens. Day 1 We landed at Athens airport in a looming thunderstorm, but the worst of the rain held off until we'd made it safely to our apartment. Graham had earmarked a nice little restaurant called Lolos for dinner - eating shell-on prawns in tomato sauce was a deliciously messy experience - and we went to bed early after our 3am start. Day 2 Next day we climbed Philopappos ...

Greece is the word! Part 2: Epidaurus

For the first part of our Greek holiday, see here . Day 4 - continued After much waiting around, we acquired a hire car and set off for the second part of our holiday. I am so glad that Graham can get into a strange car in a foreign country and drive away with no problems. I would be a nervous wreck. Even Graham was a little spooked by the Athens traffic - very narrow lanes crowded with cars and buses, and mopeds zipping in and out of every available gap. I had left Google Maps set to "avoid tolls", which meant that we stayed off the fancy new highway and took the old road towards Corinth instead. There was practically no traffic, so although it was slower, it felt very relaxed. We passed hills, hotels and oil refineries. Along the way, we stopped at a supermarket for supplies and drank Green Cola at the beach over the road. Crossing the Corinth Canal at Isthmia, we started heading south through the mountains of the Peloponnese. The sky had been growing darker and darker, and...

Derwent Valley: Derby City and the Derwent Pilgrimage

It was 8 am and I was already hayfeverish, headachey and hot. Why on earth was I setting out to walk through the middle of Derby, when I could be up in the hills of the Peak District? No one was forcing me to do this section. I could skip it entirely. But I knew I wouldn't, because this was the next part of the Derwent Valley Heritage Way. And besides, I had a suspicion that it would be better than it looked. Alvaston Park was certainly a good start. It's a wide sweep of green grass and mature trees. I used to come here quite often when the boys were small. I was glad to see some of the planets were still there - although Mars has had a lot of feet standing on it, I think. Here's a tiny Toby in 2013 with Mars... ... and a more battered Mars today. Alvaston Park I kept off the roads for a while by following a cycle route. Even when I joined the traffic, it wasn't bad. The factories and office blocks had roses outside. This road, now the A5194, used to be the A6 coming in...

Martha's Marvellous Munchies

Search This Blog