A belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Some of the treats baked for Christmas & the Mudlets’ house

Time has flown this year, more so than in other years I feel, and even Christmas has whizzed by in a blink of an eye and 2019 is just two more sleeps away. This Christmas I’ve baked new and old favourites and will be making more sweet treats for the Mudlets over the next day or so.

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Merry Christmas from Mudville

It’s safe to say that I really don’t like shopping and doing the usual big shop is my idea of hell on earth but I do it because it has to be done. My preferred way to shop is to leave Mud at home with the Mudlets and to set off on my own with my very detailed list safely tucked away in my purse. This way I can concentrate on finding the best deals without feeling the pressure of a stressed husband and bored children, who are all desperately wanting to flee the scene for the relative peace of Mudville.

Christmas Trees and Robin feed

The Mudlets decorated the tree

For several years we had bought our Christmas tree from a small, family run garden centre, usually for less and for a healthier looking tree, than could be found at the much larger local chain garden centre. Unfortunately, a couple of Christmases ago, we discovered that the owners of the small garden centre had retired and the facility was now closed and so we bought the next two trees from the larger garden centre.

Entrepreneur Mudlets

Ready for business

All the hard work put in by the Mudlets to produce pinecones and salt dough ornaments paid off this afternoon, when they had an extremely successful stall at the village Christmas market. Paper chains were added to the mix, with the last few of my knitted toys, as well as the last few glittery cones from last year which I found, carefully packed away in a shoe box, hidden amongst the tinsel and streamers in our Christmas decorations boxes.

Glittery Cinnamon Salt Dough ornaments

Rudolph the red nose reindeer …….. with sparkly nose

The Mudlets love to do crafting, whether it be making and painting Warhammer miniatures or Airfix models with Mud, learning to knit (Little Mudlet is doing a pretty good job making a blanket for her teddy), or drawing. They particularly enjoy crafting associated with Christmas and this year is no different. Middle Mudlet has collected around 80 pinecones which she will be painting and glittering and both girls have a pack of paper chain links bought in the January sales and a couple of packs of sparkly cards with envelopes, in red and green, which they intend to make into Christmas cards.

Jumper dress in Softfun Denim

Little Mudlets choice

With my lace top finished (completely forgot to do a final post for that but will do one shortly) and the first of the tinsel hedgehogs out of the way, I set to and cast on the stitches for the back section of Little Mudlets’ jumper dress. I had chosen Scheepjeswol Softfun Denim for this particular project in a lovely, dark mint green colour (shade 517) which has a subtle fade graduation through it which you can just about make out in these pictures. The pattern is a King Cole (4022) and is written for double knit but I opted for the Scheepjeswol over the recommended King Cole dk because I preferred the colour options the Softfun gave me.

Christmas in Mudville

The Mudlets did a good job on the tree

The run up to Christmas was a hectic one in Mudville, starting with the putting up of the decorations on the 1st of December and culminating with the youngest Mudlets finding all manner of surprises left by Santa under the tree. A broken hearted and poorly Eldest Mudlet came across for the day, stayed the night but went home Boxing Day to languish in the comfort of her own bed, taking with her the warm hug I had knitted for her. But as much as the build up to Christmas Day was busy and filled with the pent up excitement of the younger girls, all too soon it was over and we found ourselves ambling along to New Years with an exhausted and flu ridden Mud taking to his bed for the best part of two days.

A (derelict) Gingerbread Village for Chuck

A new toy for me: my fabulous gingerbread village mould

We received a surprise package the other day, a parcel of gifts from Chuck in America and one of the items was this really rather special looking silicone gingerbread village cake mould. I couldn’t wait to try it out but Mud reminded me that it was a Christmas Present and so I put it away and tried not to sulk too much. Then in an email to Mud, Chuck commented that he would be watching with interest to see if a post on using the mould appeared on my blog and that was all the encouragement I needed to get baking. I’ve never used a silicone mould of any description before and so I read up about other peoples experiences and with a mixture of apprehension and excitement, I set about trying to make a gingerbread village.

Christmas day in Mudville

The Lego Cargo train built by Little Mudlet

It was 7.10 Christmas morning when we all trundled downstairs to see what Santa had left under the tree. All things considered, we got off lightly and even then it was Mud getting up which started the day and not Little Mudlet which, considering the state of hyper excitement she has been in this last week, was the first surprise of the day.

The Polar Express …… minus the snow, the moose and the roller coaster

Excited Mudlets meeting Santa

Way back in the Summer, we visited the Lincolnshire Wolds Railway in Ludborough and had a thoroughly enjoyable couple of hours, details of which can be found here. Whilst in the gift shop I noticed an advert for ‘Santa Specials’ which operated over two weekends in December and so later that night, with the Mudlets tucked up in bed, I did some investigations via Google. For £8 per person, you get a ride on the train with Santa and his helpers and a quality gift and after some review reading, we chose which day we wanted to go and what time and sent off the booking form.