The week before Christmas is by far the best week of the entire year. I find it so exciting, people generally tend to be in a really good mood, everyone is winding down, most of my plans are centred around food, and the TV channels have ALL the best things on.
Our Christmas food shop was delivered this week (today, in fact) and it was full to the brim of sugary goodness, copious amounts of party food – I like to put a huge spread on for Christmas Eve – and of course cheese galore and the number one Christmas essential… Advocaat. In fact, I’m sipping a snowball as I write this post.
It’s the final weekend before Christmas and this morning I spent it getting all my presents wrapped and under the tree. The wrapping paper I actually picked up in Aldi, although if you saw it you wouldn’t think so, it’s absolutely beautiful and was such a bargain – bonus. Then in the afternoon my mum popped over and we ventured off into our village for a mooch around the shops where I picked up a last minute gift, and also some logs for our fire pit, as we are having family over on Christmas Eve and plan to toast giant marshmallows in the evening, over a fire.
We also had a nosey around our local garden centre, where I excitedly picked up some bits for a tiny fairy garden that I want to make when summer comes around. We have a weeping tree in the corner of the garden, and I’ve always wanted to create something like that, so I was delighted to see that our new local garden centre stocked all the essentials. There was no way I was venturing out into the rain to put the bits out, so I made do with a picture of them in my kitchen for now!
In the evening my boyfriend (fiancรฉ, I know – it’s still a cringe word to me) and I watched Arthur Christmas and The Muppet Christmas Carol (again) with some camembert and a gin each.
On Friday evening, my boyfriend had a night out with his friends, and so I took advantage of the empty house to bring round my friends for a girls night in, and show them around our new home.
I’m still super obsessed with it, and absolutely love it, so it was nice to show my best friends around the place finally. They also came with lovely gifts, which was so so nice, and included these beautiful flowers that I can’t stop looking at every time I go into the kitchen.
We ate lots and lots of pizza and watched the newer version of Beauty and the Beast, which I hadn’t seen yet. Well, I still kind of haven’t, the amount of chatting away we did, but I did record it, so I might have a proper watch of it tomorrow evening.
On Friday, the chocolate brownies I had ordered for Christmas Eve also arrived in the post, and I may or may not have already taste tested one. I’m also planning on baking some triple chocolate cookies, and chocolate and peanut butter slices tomorrow, all for Christmas Eve, so it really will be a sugar overload on Monday! Oh, and I’ve also bought all the ingredients to make slow cooker hot chocolate – I can’t bloody wait.
Speaking of baked goods, does anyone remember those little rum truffle cake balls you used to be able to get from the old fashioned traditional bakeries? Well last week I discovered that the bakery in our village sells them, and the rate I’m eating them, I’m probably going to turn into one; but it was so nice to find such a nostalgic treat. The man who runs it has even started throwing me ones in for free, because I’ve been buying that many… oh dear!!!
I hope everyones had a lovely week too, the run up to Christmas is just the best. Not long now to go…
