creating Christmas * day 21

The handmade gifts, part 2

It has been like Santa’s factory here today. I finally made the last of the gifts and today it was the gingerbread stars. It sounded quite easy, but in fact because my mind kept wandering I made a few mistakes here and there; nothing too drastic that couldn’t be fixed, but annoying all the same.

Instead of getting the ready roll gingerbread again I decided to make my own as I wanted it to be more gingery than the bought one….my first mistake – even though I added more ginger than the recipe, I still think I could have added more.

As always with my gifts I have a vision in my head of what I want the final result to be. I must say halfway through I thought it might all be going wrong but in the end I think they turned out close to what I had in mind. You will see the finished results below.

The first step was to cut out hundreds of small stars (well not quite, but it seemed like it at the time). Even this was tricky trying to keep their shape and stop them looking like starfish with wonky points.

I cooked the first batch to the times the recipe stated but I thought they were a bit too crisp and I wanted them a little softer. So I reduced the cooking time for the next batch to 8 minutes and that did the trick.

The next step, once cooled, was to dip in dark chocolate…

….then add some pretty gold sprinkles.

A second batch was dipped in white chocolate….

…..and a few had white chocolate laced over the top.

Once dry, I carefully filled one of the lovely Christmas glasses I had bought specially from Sainsbury’s.

…and repeated three times…

Packaged in cellophane, added a tag and voila!

So now my gifts to my friends are complete: one calendar of local scenes, and a glass filled with gingerbread stars.

Tomorrow, I will deliver them and I can turn my attentions, once again, to the final bits and pieces. Master Freddie will be coming Monday or Tuesday, so all the presents will have to be hidden from sight again.

Mum managed to ring a few times today when I had my hands full of sticky gingerbread dough. She times it well! She doesn’t seem to able to grasp the fact that it will be Christmas in a few days time and also asks over and over if we will be going up on Christmas Day. We have been round it all so many times, and not only me, but so have the carers, and I daresay my sister will have had the same questions.

On the whole though she has been remarkably good in the last few days and there have been minimal phone calls from her. The worst one being her call for help as she had lost the sound on the TV whilst watching Sense and Sensibility. She had obviously pressed the wrong button on the remote as it had changed programs and she had got Shrek on the screen suddenly. Even mum knew the difference! Trying to talk her through the steps to get it back took half and hour by which time Sense and Sensibility was almost at an end!

I expect when my sister says to take a jumper and a bucket on Christmas day in case of heating failure and roof leak in her new home (it is by all accounts a bit of a wreck), she may not be joking.

It won’t be the first strange Christmas…we have had some unusual Christmases in the past which are documented either on this blog or my previous one. When my daughter and her husband worked in a village pub near Masham we had our family Christmas dinner there whilst it was closed to the public. We had the whole pub and restaurant to ourselves and a room each for the night. Catering on such a large scale was much easier in the professional kitchen than it would have been trying to do it at home and, of course, as daughter was then married to a chef it was all prepared and on time.

It was a good Christmas and the men all loved it as they had a pool table and the bar all to themselves.

The other crazy Christmas day was when my MIL was in a care home in Shrewsbury and we went to spend Christmas day and Boxing day with her. We had decided this particular year not to have dinner in the care home with her (don’t ask me why as we usually did) so because all the cafes are closed on Christmas day DH and I had our Christmas dinner (actually cup a soup) in a car park somewhere in Shrewsbury, complete with a camping stove and some very funny looks!

Well that is me finished for the day…just time to press publish before day 21 is over and then time for bed I think. It was exceptionally dark this morning being the winter solstice. I was glad to be warm and cosy in bed and lingered far longer than I should have done, especially as those stars were calling out to be made.

So what is left to create for Christmas now…well I hope you might drop by and see.

I hope all your plans are going well, back soon x

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