crEAting Christmas

December 13, 2025December 13, 2025

creating Christmas * day 12

The humble mince pie

I don’t know about you but as I get older a mince pie gives me more trouble than I need at Christmas. Call it indigestion, heartburn or whatever I know when I have eaten one these days.

It is a bit miserable that I can’t eat them without suffering anymore as nothing says Christmas quite like a mince pie; I swear they have been in the shops since we returned home from holiday in August. In Sainsbury’s, like most supermarkets, they are piled high but are never as good as a homemade one, at least I don’t think so.

I still make a few but these are mainly to give to people dropping by unexpectedly or take to some event. I like to make those tiny ones that you can eat in a mouthful and they do make a lovely little gift.

Strangely, I can eat a small amount of the wonderful Ecclefechan tarts that we can buy in our local Sainsbury’s now. They are like a cross between a Yorkshire curd tart and a mince pie. At one time we only ever saw these in the shops in Scotland when we went up to our cottage, the little town of Ecclefechan being only a short detour on the way to Stranraer.

So I will stick with these at Christmas time, maybe one day I will try out a recipe for them!

As I missed posting this yesterday, there are two posts today so that I can catch up.

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December 11, 2025December 11, 2025

creating Christmas * day 11

The Christmas Angels

Christmas without angels at our house would be like a picnic without sandwiches.

Since my two daughters were about six and seven, I have always put an angel in the top of their stocking.

Over the years, they have been made of many different materials – paper, wood, ceramic, wire and even a knitted one…. and when I was desperate and couldn’t find any one year, they had chocolate ones.

The photo above was the cute angel from December 2023 and one of my favourites. You can see more of them here on a previous Christmas post.

This year, I have struggled again to find angels in the shops amongst the abundance of mice and dinosaurs; they are definitely in short supply!

On the journey home from Elizabeth Gaskell’s house yesterday, we called at a garden centre for a hot chocolate. The Christmas display that met us as we walked in through the door was rather overwhelming, but at last, hanging between a polar bear and a frosted bauble, I spied an angel.

They are quite unusual, made of pottery of some kind with a raised gold decoration and quite heavy for their tiny size. They are snuggly wrapped in tissue paper now, hiding away until it is time to make their appearance on Christmas day.

Earlier today, I did some more work on the Christmas gifts for my four friends. We only give small presents, usually under £10 and mine are often handmade or a mix of something handmade and bought.

This year, by request, I am making the calendars once more with pictures in and around our village.

You can see the previous calendars here

I have been taking photos all year on our walks around the village ready to edit and print them. They are only small desktop ones..not very intrusive or requiring wall space.

Along with the calendar I am planning (though this might not work out) to make some tiny gingerbread stars that will be partially dipped in white or dark chocolate and perhaps a sprinkle of gold decoration as well. These will be put into a cellophane bag and dropped into a lovely Christmas glass that has a raised Christmas tree on the front amidst a flurry of snowflakes that I bought weeks ago in Sainsbury’s.

Well, that is the plan and another post, another day.

We havea few busy days coming up now; we will be out all day tomorrow and then the girls (Little L and Sweetie) are coming to stay and we will no doubt be crafting.

I had an idea as I fell asleep last night to use some glittery gold and silver card and coloured tissue that I have in my craft boxes to make some hanging stars with them.

This is a prototype I made up quickly today. I think once hung in a cluster, the light will shine through the tissue like a stained glass window. Each star that I cut out then makes a smaller star. It will be very much a ‘watch this space’.

Today’s Advent window was a Christmas pudding. I won’t be making one this year as we are going to my sister’s house, but generally I just buy a small one for DH as it is far too sweet for me these days. I love the look of them though.

And now I am ready for putting my feet up and watching the catch up of Shetland on the TV.

Back soon X

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December 11, 2025December 11, 2025

creating Christmas * day 10

The Christmas visit

Elizabeth Gaskell’s House

The Christmas season would not be complete without a visit to one of the many places that put on a Christmas event. I prefer the lesser known places, the ones that are not overcrowded and Elizabeth Gaskell’s house fit the bill completely.

I was as excited about this day as a child might be let loose in a toyshop. Mrs Gaskell’s house had been on my ‘go to see list’ for so long and it was definitely worth the wait to go at Christmas….. and it was everything I had hoped for and more.

It is only over the hill from us towards Manchester city centre, not an easy route ploughing through the unknown areas of the suburbs, but we made good time and as our booking was for 11.40 am we missed the worst of the morning rush. To our astonishment we could park on the street right outside the house for 3 hours free and thereby avoiding the usual steep parking charges in Manchester.

The house was beautifully decorated and in addition there were readings from Little Women (Elizabeth Gaskell had close connections with the Louisa May Alcott) and musical entertainment by the Gaskell Singers choir…who were heavenly to listen to.

There is too much for me to write about and too many photos to edit in this post today but I will do a special post about the visit soon….they would welcome the publicity, I am told, and need more visitors to keep them going especially in January….but the sun is shining and my other Christmas tasks are calling me to go and attend to them….. so I will leave you at this point.

I will be posting creating Christmas * day 11 at some time later today.

Meanwhile thank you for all your lovely comments recently, you always have interesting things to say and I love to hear about your Christmas preparations, though I fear mine are well behind most of you.

And welcome new subscribers – I hope you enjoy reading.

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December 9, 2025December 9, 2025

creating Christmas * day 9

The Nutroast

I like to make our Christmas dinner early as being vegetarian we don’t eat turkey. This year once again DH made our nutroast. It is a more elaborate nutroast that we have for Christmas, a recipe that my daughter found years ago from the pages of good old Woman’s Weekly.

Not only does it have to freeze well but it has to be transportable if we are dining elsewhere on Christmas day and this year we will be at my sister’s, I think, though we haven’t actually had a direct invite from her, but my daughter tells me she is expecting us. Let’s hope that is right and we are not a surprise when we turn up.

Each year I say to DH don’t cook the nutroast too long as we will have to reheat it, but I fear it might just be a touch too cooked, never mind it will still taste good and even better as he made it.

Today, we went supermarket grocery shopping. It is getting noticeably busier on each visit now and the carpark much fuller and there is a bit of a scramble to secure a place, not quite carpark rage but a lot of honking of horns and near misses.

We didn’t need to buy much of anything for the week’s menu plan, mainly all the fresh chiller foods and vegetables, so I made use of all the Nectar offers and stocked up a bit on anything reduced like the coffee and butter; these are such expensive items now.

I also had to pop into town to get a birthday card for my younger daughter for the weekend and look for a small gift to go with the money we will give her. I had a quick look in TK Max for something for her and saw a ‘possible’ that I might go back for later in the week. I had a quick look at their Christmas bits and pieces as they get some quite unusual things.

DH likes having a mooch around there too. He doesn’t generally like shopping but insists on going. I wanted to get some nougat for him for his stocking but today he stuck to me like glue and I could not shake him off long enough to go and buy some without him noticing.

It isn’t often he sees something he likes, but he showed me a set of four rather lovely little ridged flutes in quite a solid glass – quite inexpensive and they would be ideal for a kind of knickerbocker glory style dessert. I wasn’t going to say no to them as I like them too and I am already thinking of what I might serve in them.

I found some rather fun decorations for the tree too, brightly coloured iced biscuits (or are they cookies I am not sure of the difference). Not that we really need any more decor. I might split them between myself and my daughters.

I do like tissue paper to wrap presents in and TK Max and Homesense have had some lovely printed ones and this stocking design is great for the grandchildren’s presents.

And the calendar is so much fun – I will definitely be making one next year and might even see if they will appeal on the coffee morning craft stall.