Christmas Eve has arrived. There was still a lot of hustle and bustle in the village earlier – the last-minute dash to the Co-op and Post Office for those forgotten items; but in the main people are settling down at home now and soon calm will descend on the village again. We were out this afternoon completing my final Advent task. This is how my Advent days 19 to 24 panned out…
Day 19 my task read ‘make lemon curd for gifts and save a jar to keep’.
I had just four organic lemons to make some lemon curd – there was enough for 3 jars – one jar went to my younger daughter yesterday and another into a home made hamper for my elder daughter and of course one saved just for me for my toast tomorrow.
Day 20 was set aside to make a gift for three of my closest friends. I bought some of those wall calendars that you can put your own photos in. I needed 3 and was lucky to find that Boots did three for the price of two so they only cost me £5.33 each plus printing costs.
For each friend we chose a selection of photos some months included pictures of themselves (unseen footage) and we also found photos of places they might recognise.
Day 21 this advent task was the grand wrapping day. I always like to make my gifts more individual by wrapping each of them differently – I think it makes a gift mean so much more. 
I filled a bag with a few goodies for my mum to enjoy…
You may remember the gift envelopes I made from last years Christmas cards in January (see here). For the smaller gifts I often use printed tissue paper – I absolutely loved this old-fashioned Christmas design with the holly. The little clay dove tag I made in a previous year. 
With difficult presents I wrap them in tissue paper and then put them into plain craft bags that have been stamped or you could stick a Christmas picture onto the bag from an old Christmas card.
The calendars were wrapped in plain brown paper and then stamped with snow flakes.
I also keep a roll of wrapping paper when I want something just a bit special and try to tie in the colours of the paper with a tag made from …you guessed it…an old Christmas card. 
Day 22Â – ‘set some time aside to read a favourite Christmas book’
Who can avoid reading Miss Read at Christmas time – tales of village folk and their country ways. I wanted to get the Village Christmas but could not find it to buy and the library do not seem to stock her anymore. So I settled for rereading an old copy of Battles at Thrush Green and after tea watched another episode of Poirot.
Day 23 – ‘a birthday party celebration’
For this we made our way once again up to North Yorkshire on the A1(M) putting the car onto automatic (Ha ha!) to go to my sister’s house where we were celebrating my niece’s 21st birthday with family and friends. It was a lovely do and I got to see Little L and Sweetie once again and also exchange any gifts. My sister now has the largest house and it is a perfect entertaining space (not that I am deeply envious or anything!). The draw back is I cannot even make a cuppa tea as there is no kettle, only one of those strange taps, and I have to guess which cupboard houses the fridge from a bank of cabinets and I always choose the wrong one.
Day 24 – Christmas Eve…delivering the remainder of our presents to our friends. This is so enjoyable as most people have done all they are going to do by now and we can go from house to house enjoying a drink, a biscuit and a natter. This year took rather longer than expected so I over ran and have missed the Crib Service which was included in my Advent task so I might go to the Midnight Mass later.
So that is the end of my Advent activities – I switched a couple of tasks as I was running out of time. The little tea cosy and napkins are half started but will have to wait until later in the week before I get the sewing machine out again.
And just before I go you might remember a picture of some little tissue wrapped parcels I had after our recent visit to Scotland see here.  They were inexpensive items of one pound or just over. This is what was inside.
Two glass owls, 5 baubles in the shape of pine cones and a tiny red father Christmas.
I am not sure when I will post again – a few days rest perhaps – but I wish you all a very
  Happy Christmas and New Year
xxx
But you will need to keep it a secret until Christmas Eve (and her real name too!)
Day 17 – I swapped my Advent task today to make the mince pies – after all Christmas would not be Christmas without them even though I can only eat one or two as they don’t really agree with me now. I often bake these tiny ones as they make a lovely token gift and this batch was to take in to my old workplace for my former colleagues.
The thickness didn’t affect the taste though, the pastry was ‘melt in the mouth’ with no soggy bottoms. After a dusting of icing sugar I packaged them up onto these little white trays (I collected during the year from Chocolate Mini Rolls) lined with a doyley and added a sprinkling of confetti – green metallic holly leaves. 
I also took in a tray of the chocolates. Well it is Christmas.
Day 16 – Sunday – we woke up to an unexpectedly bright and sunny day here – we really had plenty of jobs to do; my Advent task was to make some tiny mince pies to take in for the girls at my old workplace sometime during the week, but instead we left all that at home and drove down into Derbyshire for a bit of a break and the mince pies would just have to wait. Of course we had been the weekend before with my mum but it was difficult to really do very much or spend any time looking around the shops and there was a couple of gifts I needed to sort out and I knew just the places for some inspiration.
Sadly he died in 2009 but the work he has left behind still stands the test of time. If you want to see and read more click-through 
As you might expect the shop only stocks quality linen tea towels and amongst them I found these old-fashioned oven gloves which I bought as they were only £6 – I have been searching for ages to replace mine as they have developed a hole from overuse – I like them to be quite soft and flexible as I do not get on well with those quilted stiff ones. These passed the test for flexibility.
On our way to Bakewell we stopped off at the pretty little village of Baslow. There are a couple of independent shops selling gifts and plants and vintage finds. In the vintage flower shop we came across a round zinc tub perfect for holding our Christmas tree and at a very reasonable price (photo later when I take one of the finished tree). We then stopped briefly at the Derbyshire Craft centre looking for a small gift that would be light enough to post, but nothing really fit the bill.
The huge Nativity scene outside the church on the hill is certainly something to see – we climbed up through the grave yard to capture this photo – I wasn’t sure it would come out very well but it has.
We had a ‘perfick’ day – I do love doing something impulsive from time to time just as the mood takes us and we chose a good day to do it – and I did manage to fit in the mince pies the following day – photos tomorrow. x
where the journey takes me 2 