I am trying very hard to adjust to life without chocolate for breakfast, all day drinking, mornings spent in bed, afternoons spent on the sofa watching films, and foraging for leftover-based meals requiring no planning or cooking at all. Frankly, it’s not going well. Might have to go back to bed with the box of Hotel Chocolat Caramel Angels sent to me by the gorgeous Kate Hardy until school pick up time.
I'll leave you with a picture of the gingerbread house the daughters and I spent all of Christmas Eve painstakingly constructing. (If you look carefully you can see where the jelly tots have been removed from around the window. Honestly, did my children learn nothing from the story of Hansel and Gretel?)
Happy 2011 everyone. How was the holiday for you?
11 comments:
Ah, you see you ARE a goddess of gorgeous domesticity! I spent a whole day making a gingerbread house once. 'Once' being the operative word when I discovered Lidl sold then for £4.99. Not terribly tasty though ...
Christmas was great. Glad it's over now and feeling a bit grumpy about having to lose more hours to getting all the decos down. Froze the left over turkey - suggest sweepstake as to how long it is before I just chuck it out.
Great to have you back!
Rach.
X
Hello gorgeous! Glad to see you back, you don't blog enough! That gingerbread cake is too ridiculously professional to be accepted. I don't believe it. I want you to come to Dublin immediately and remake it from scratch so I can verify it for myself.
x Abby
Beautiful cake, you talented lot.
I've unselfishly eaten every bit of chocolate in the house so no one else is tempted by it. Now I need to start some sort of exercise plan ...
Wow that is a gingerbread house and a half!
Oh India, I'm glad it's not just me, getting ourselves back into the new/old routine, when like you, it's tempting to keep eating the chocs and loll on the sofa with the films still to watch from Christmas! Here I am, with the blog page open, itching to write and holding back despite all the freedom in the world to do so, and on my beautiful laptop too. Guess it's time to let go and let it flow....all the best, Ellie xx
Hey Rach, glad you had a lovely Christmas. That whole decorations down thing is such a depressing task. I've been known to mutter about not bothering with the holly-in-hard-to-reach places at all next year, but somehow always forget.
Ah, well Abby *adjusts nerdy specs* it's not strictly a cake you see. It's more of a biscuit-based construction, glued together with industrial quantities of teeth-rotting royal icing. The gingerbread itself is really nice, except when it's smothered in teeth-rotting royal icing and left standing around for ten days. Then it just tastes like stale cardboard. The jelly tots were lovely though.
Ah Joanne, us mums are so self-sacrificing aren't we? I've done pretty much the same thing since I wanted to save my little darlings from the toxic effects of all that fat and sugar. Exercise is a tricky one, isn't it? I'm not really a gym bunny type and I don't know how many calories loading the washing machine uses up. What's the answer?
Thanks Lacey! (beams with pride)
Ooh Ellie - new laptop by any chance? I think that bit about going with the flow is key and at this time of the year, right from the start it's a good idea to give ourselves permission not to make everything perfect. Might make that my NY resolution - 'I will stick two fingers up at perfection this year' (Actually, I think I ended up doing that last year, just not consciously...)
Hi India
Great cake! I always imagined I would make cakes like that when I was a mum, but it never seems to happen... :)
Our Christmas was great fun, the first one where the kids were fully into it. Amazingly we still got to sleep in until 7.30am. I suspect next year it's going to be more like 4.30am.
I cooked my first ever Christmas dinner. I made extensive notes beforehand and somehow managed to get everything onto the table while it was still hot. Was very proud of myself.
We went for a walk over the Bristol downs afterwards and pulled the kids around on the sledge in the glorious winter sunshine. Fantastic fun.
Happy New Year
Kristy x
WOW Kristy! You managed all that and your baby is HOW old? I carefully planned my children's birthdays(!) at the beginning of the year so we were at the pureed food and regular afternoon naps stage by their first Christmases, but I'm certain I still didn't produce the full works at lunchtime, or do more than slump on the sofa afterwards. You are a goddess.
So glad you had a lovely time, though. Now of course I want to see photos of everyone else's christmas - anyone want to send me some so I can post them?!
Happy New Year, India.
We sort of stayed quiet this year what with DH not being able to do much.
Son had come back from Uni and only wanted to sleep and eat Mum's homemade food...wonder WHAT time he goes to bed over there and WHAT he eats....no, actually I think I don't want to know.
We had an awful - well for here it is anyway - amount of snow and were literally stuck in the house for several days.
Luckily everything is back to normal now and school is on again.
THAT means my vacation has started. No more slaving in the kitchen!!!
Hi India,
Happy New Year. Christmas was good and we had fun on New Year's Eve. Hope you got some great gifts.
Brigitte, I was thinking of you! Glad son got home safely and you were able to bolster him up with home comforts (definitely best not to ask what goes on at uni...) A quiet Christmas at home sounds pretty perfect to me, although with your poor dh being laid up perhaps perfection would be stretching it a bit! Anyway, enjoy your time now, and happy 2011!
Thanks Jane! I got a Kindle, which I'm loving. What did you get up to on New Year's Eve? I'm intrigued...!
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