Babies and baubles
Poorly girls, leading to changing plans, interrupting my own train of thought with visions of Christmas puddings and some crucial questions around the topic of Christmas trees. Topped off with an invitation to consider giving a gift voucher as a fabulous and considerate present. All part of the story of a holiday cottage and shepherd’s hut owner. Read on ..
Well strictly speaking my girls aren’t actually babies, in fact they are 7 now so you would think that having twins would be getting easier, and in a lot of ways it is. I no longer have to worry about which carrycot to leave behind while I move from one part of the house to another, or which car seat to put on the ground while I lift the other one out of the car. I don’t have to struggle around the petrol station shop trying to carry a carton of milk and a loaf of bread at the same time as 2 babies in car seats. The guilt! Which baby do you pick up first? Change first, wind first?
Those days are gone and it’s sad really because I don’t remember much about them. Sleep deprivation was and still is a real thing. Now they are little girls not babies and so those problems no longer exist, replaced instead by new ones familiar to all parents of more than one child. Bickering and arguing, each wanting the exact same item even when we have 2 identical ones, trying out some early teenage behaviour and attitudes (dear Lord I am not ready for the real thing!) and constantly telling tales on each other. Why am I telling you this? Well because one of them had to come home from school a week last Friday poorly and not herself. 2 days later her sister joined the party and between them they have managed to have upset stomachs (I won’t go into detail) coughs, runny noses AND temperatures. The minute one seems to improve the other tries out a new symptom or returns for a re-run of a symptom they left behind days ago. Today we are on day 9 and no sign of a let-up. The consequence has been that I’ve had to completely throw away most of my plans for the week. Having twins did teach me that sometimes you just have to roll with events and accept that this is what’s happening right now. I may have learned that lesson in theory at least but when you are trying to get on with something isn’t it so frustrating?
So, no gym this week, a photoshoot cancelled, along with a much needed haircut, meetings had to be rearranged and there was no sleep to be had. On a positive note I have now finished pickling and have only one batch of blackberry and one of raspberry vodka left to bottle. I have 2 Christmas cakes left to ice, one is ours and the other is a small one to put in the final hamper. There is one left over because I did, and I’m completely convinced it was an accident but I did eat one of the cakes almost the minute it came out of the oven, it was still hot but I practically inhaled it!
Christmas Pudding
I’ve just interrupted my own train of thought to check when stir up Sunday is and it’s tomorrow! I don’t know if this is a named syndrome but in my mind I seem to be permanently about 2-3 weeks behind reality, so appointments, arrangements and engagements suddenly leap out of thin air and smack me in the face. Even when I know they are coming, even when they are written on the calendar, I just don’t think it’s that late, I think it’d 10 days away, not tomorrow!
Let’s digress a little then to look at stir up Sunday and to maybe make a little shopping list for tomorrow. Having consulted Google to check my facts, stir up Sunday is the last Sunday before Advent and has been the traditional day when home cooks make their Christmas puddings. Stirring up the ingredients in a big bowl, we did it as kids and I do it now with my two, I even encourage my partner to have a go and we all make a wish, hoping for good luck or possibly a Barbie doll, depending on who’s doing the wishing.
Tomorrow then plans will again have to be shelved in favour of ingredient shopping. Now I come to think about it, I think our conversation here with have to be paused while I find a recipe and check what I already have in the cupboard. I will sneak off quietly as the poorliest child has just started gently snoring on the sofa next to me. Its only just after 3pm and she is usually full of beans so she must be struggling.
Some time later…miraculously and by the skin of my teeth I did actually have enough dried fruit, and even some brown ale and rum so have been able to get the soaking process started. I’m using a Leith’s recipe, I do in fact have a Leith’s cookery school qualification but more on that another time. One thing you can guarantee is that their recipe will be excellent. The downside though is that it will only make enough for one pudding. Even though my dad will be with us for Christmas, I always like to send him home with a couple of small ones. He loves, them, Christmas cake and mince pies. His absolute favourite though is a treacle tart, I can’t remember the last time I made one of those so might just treat him and make one for the next time I see him.
Tomorrow I will look for my mum’s Christmas pudding recipe, I’m sure that makes a pretty decent quantity and I would like to make a couple more to give to guests when they stay at the holiday cottage, and the same for the shepherd’s hut. I know Christmas pudding isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but I would like to have some ready .
Onto the Baubles bit..
Well shall we start with the great tree debacle of 2022? I have a whole series of questions to ask you around Christmas trees and would love to see your answers in the comments. Just to give the back story here, I was lucky enough to be a vicarage child and so we always had large real trees back then. I’m pretty traditional and I love the smell of a real tree so have continued to have them and as large as I could fit into the house/flat or wherever I happened to be living. So it’s fair to say that my experience with artificial trees is, or until recently was pretty close to zero.
So here is question number one, are you for or against artificial trees? If that question is too closed for you, then feel free to expand your answers. I’m generally against them, I prefer a real tree. When I’ve discussed this with friends they usually respond by commenting on the mess made by the dropped needles. Well guess what? I’ve just found out that the artificial ones do exactly the same when you’re setting them up! That was news to me. Granted its probably just when you set them up and take them down but really, that’s more or less the same for real trees.
OK, question number 2, when do you put your tree up? I wonder if I’m the only person that likes to put ours up on Christmas Eve and take it down on the 6th. I really enjoy and appreciate it for those 12 nights, but the trend seems to be to start the minute we move into December. A friend of mine is so sick of looking at her trees (yes in the plural) that they and all the other decorations are down and packed away by Boxing day.
So why am I talking about putting trees up now? In November? more than a month ahead of my preferred date? Well because I want to show people what the cottage looks like at Christmas. Lots of the photos on my website, Airbnb etc are taken in Spring and Summer when North Wales looks fantastic, it’s easy to imagine yourself sitting in a sunny corner, reading a book or in the garden taking in the view. The cottage though is super cosy in the winter. I’ve often thought how amazing it would be to just up sticks and go to stay somewhere where all the decorating has already been done, and all I have to do is turn up, grab a mulled wine and relax.
So here we are, then, before the twins getting poorly, I had a photographer coming to get some shots of me that I could use on social media etc, it seemed a great opportunity to get some Christmassy backgrounds in there at the same time. So, with a short deadline, I got googling looking for my first artificial tree. Here comes my ignorance making another appearance, I didn’t realise that they are measured from the floor. I thought it was the green bit, so I decided to order a 4 foot one to put on a side table. I found one I really liked and decided to live dangerously and hope it would arrive the day before I needed it. It did!
It was a bit titchy. Still full steam ahead, off we went looking for baubles etc. I should point out that tree decorating is not really my strength, particularly now that it’s practically an Olympian sport. So I roped in my good friend to advise, and in fact actually do the decorating itself. This leads us nicely to question number 3; white lights (soft of course) or mixed coloured lights? I love the mixed colours, inside on a Christmas tree and outside on garden trees. I love the colours! My friend though likes the white ones and I suspect most of the people who know about these things also do, so we went for white.
Question number 4, do you colour theme your baubles? You can guess my answer…. Colours! Red and gold, green and pink, I love them all mixed together. I was told though, correctly as it turned out that we should get blue, I chose silver to complement them and we were all set. Actually we dragged around a few shops until I just went for it and got some, I even sneaked a couple of pale pink ones in, for accent you understand.
The tree was too small
So the tree was decorated. I won’t mention the fact that we had to thread every bauble by hand, that was just part of the whole rich experience. Nor will I mention that the table was too low, so we swapped it for a taller bedside table, which was too narrow so we had to cover a baking tray with red tissue paper for it to sit on. Finally, it was finished and it looked beautiful. I had taken photos as it progressed which I turned into a little video and posted on Instagram. It really was gorgeous, but also too small, the bedside table and tray hadn’t worked, it was just too small. Back to square one.
To be more positive, shall we call it square two? Admit that lessons have been learned and move forward? Another friend offered to loan me one but the very next day Facebook delivered up to me an extremely well-priced six and a half foot tree in great condition and just 2 pieces. Now, do we move the decorations from the small tree onto the big tree? Or, just move the small tree exactly as it is into the kitchen? And just like that, there I am, Mrs two trees. Of course now I need to buy some more decorations!
Next question. Is it number 5? How many lights for a tree that large? 200? 300? I did a bit more googling and settled on 300. I haven’t got as far as putting them on the tree yet so it remains to be seen whether that was the right move or not.
Recently, the big excitement was announcing the winner of the competition to win a stay in the shepherd’s hut. By happy chance she is a good friend of a lovely guest who stayed with us in the summer, I might let you into a little secret about her another time but suffice to say we had a fab time when she came to stay. The person who won has already set the date so we are looking forward to welcoming her in the Spring and are wondering if she will be bringing her husband or her friend, I can’t wait to find out.
Unique Christmas Gift
This week I’m hoping that both girls will get back to school, after a trip to the doctors we have come home armed with an absolutely vile tasting bottle of antibiotics as one of the girls has chest and throat infections poor thing. I have been delivering hampers and have one last cake to ice before I can complete the final one. These have been brilliant as Christmas presents for the person who has everything and once the final one goes I will be concentrating on my gift vouchers. They can be purchased for any value and the person you give them to can use them towards a stay in either the cottage or the shepherd’s hut. I really like this idea, you can just pop them inside a Christmas card, no wrapping paper, no mess, no waste, no cluttering up the place just a really thoughtful and caring present. Get in touch if you would like to buy one. For now, take care and speak again soon.
Cerys x