It's Christmas!

Well, nearly. Three more sleeps to go. A finished school today and hubby has just one more day at work. The tree is up, presents are wrapped, the cards are posted and the turkey is in the fridge. I'm feeling strangely organised this year!

So much so I even had time to make this little chap. I first saw him on Andrea's lovely blog Apples and Pears. She said he was "super quick to make", to me he represents three evenings of my life, I'm obviously a slow crocheter...

This is my favourite tree ornament, given to me by a Canadian family friend when I was little (eek, that'll be over 30 years ago now!)

For the first year ever I made my own mince pies. When I was young, I remember watching my parents making loads of mince pies each year (six dozen apparently!). Life's too short, I'm not doing that, I thought to myself...

...And after an evening spent faffing about rolling, cutting and filling... I'd still say life's too short for making your own mince pies! I have to say I'm rather partial to the Co-op's "Truly Irresistable" range of mince pies, certainly much less effort involved and they taste pretty good too.

Reminds me, must go and get a clementine and keep my vitamin C levels up.

Nativity ornament from Peru (funnily enough from the same Canadian lady who gave me the angel tree ornament).

Now on to the weather! We had a little fall of snow at the weekend and it's been very cold since, complete with mist and fog during the early days of this week, as you can see behind the snowmen on N's window.

We have icicles growing.

Spider's webs are thick with frost.

But today the mist lifted, the sun came out and all was sparkly and beautiful again.

The back door.

My robin suncatcher.

The sunlight made the colours of the glass friendship ball gorgeously glow.

You can see the ball in this picture too, it hangs on the centre panel of the bay window.

Another Peruvian nativity, these characters are tiny and all pack away into a match box.

Enough of inside...

...A's school finished for the holidays today at 2:30pm. N and I took the sledge with us when we went to collect her.

Lets go sledging!

Heading along the street bordering the park.

Into the park (looking absolutely beautiful in its snowy mantle)

Making our way towards the hill (with a little detour near the fountain for a photogenic scene)

And she's off, N prefers to watch as A zooms down the hill.

The trees are amazing, I've never seen the frost so thick on the branches before.

Surprisingly we seem to have the park pretty much to ourselves. A has a great time. Despite wearing an extra pair of woolly sock my feet are getting so cold they start to hurt. Time to go home (taking photos on the way!)

It was also a bit of a sad day today. I normally play badminton once a week with some of the other Mums. The local Sports Centre has an excellent creche which N really enjoys attending. The creche is in a lovely little room with big windows, it has a great selection of toys and fabulous staff. Today was his last day, the council are closing the creche from tomorrow to save money. So much for encouraging participation in sport for all - certainly for me it makes it dificult to use the sports centre now till N starts nursery which isn't till August. The creche was also an excellent way for N to get some time away from me (he can be rather clingy), and the staff were excellent. I agree it probably was under-utilised but it was really badly publicised. We only found out it was there through word of mouth, I suspect they've been trying to get rid of it for a while - too much paperwork and regulations involved. Bah humbug!

Anyway, incase I don't manage to post again before the big day, I hope everything goes well for you all. Having spent last Christmas feeling rather unwell (nothing major fortunately, but I did feel very sorry for myself) I espeicially wish everyone Good Health. Merry Christmas!