Preparations

The weather has taken a distinctly wintry turn over the last few days, with frosty mornings and icy winds. The drop in temperatures, combined with the endless adverts for Black Friday, remind me that Christmas will be here sooner than I'd like.

I've been thinking a lot about the festive season over the last week; what I can do now, versus what I can do later, what I want to do versus what I realistically have time or budget to do. Trying, as ever, to get that elusive balance just right, and trying to do things in a less wasteful way too.

Christmas brings out my inner homemaker like no other celebration, and I always want to make every edible item and craft idea I see in every magazine I open. This year, as always, I have made a Christmas fruit cake which I will not ice as I don't much like marzipan or royal icing, and my usual batch of cranberry chutney. I did both of these in the October half term break when I had time to pleasurably potter around the kitchen with the radio on, and neither of these tasks are particularly time consuming.

I also - a first for me - made a Christmas pudding. I always buy one, although it's only me who really likes it, but this year I fancied making one. I've always been put off by the steaming, as having to leave a pan simmering for eight hours seemed like a disaster waiting to happen for someone as distractable and forgetful as me, but my mum suggested steaming it in the slow cooker. I didn't even know this was possible, but after quite a lot of research I gave it a go and it was incredibly easy, although obviously we have yet to taste it! But the cake, pudding and chutney were made in advance, not out of some mad desire for a perfect homemade Christmas, but because I enjoy this kind of thing and I had the time. However, two weeks before Christmas, when we're in the midst of a hectic weekend but Angus really wants to bake mince pies with me, we'll be using shop bought mincemeat and ready rolled pastry as we do every year, and we'll proudly call them homemade because we cut out the shapes and baked them in our oven. If we make a gingerbread house, it will be from a kit. I'm not above bashing the kit up a bit and passing it off as homemade either. It's all about balance.

As far as handmade crafting goes, I will make my own cards again but purely because I want to and I enjoy it. I bought a stamp, an ink pad and a pack of blank cards and envelopes to create handmade cards with minimal effort, and it supports a small independent business too. However, if the children want to send cards to their friends, we'll be buying a multipack in the supermarket. I'll be making my own gift tags for parcels from last year's Christmas cards and wrapping my gifts in brown parcel paper. I am a big fan of brown paper; it's cheap, you can decorate it for any occasion (we'll be using a star stamp with white and gold ink pads) and it can be recycled, unlike most of the usual foil covered Christmas wrapping paper. It also makes me think of brown paper packages tied up with string and The Sound of Music, and that's no bad thing. 

Handmade gifts have been hugely scaled down; a toy for Angus, a bag for Bella, and two small wall hangings for friends. That's it. I am going to make an advent calendar this year based on last years driftwood advent calendar but without gifts. This one will be hung with twenty four little envelopes, each containing an activity or treat. Gifts have been scaled down and my consumption of single use plastic has crept into my thoughts more this year than any other, as I try to reduce the amount of plastic we'll be throwing away this Christmas. 

So that's where I am with Christmas. I'm working my way through the gift shopping, I've booked my online supermarket food delivery slot, and I've made a couple of very long lists. I feel calm about it all now, but focused, because I don't want the week before Christmas to be horrible and stressful. I want to be able to get into the spirit of Christmas at school without spending my evenings frantically doing last minute things that I wish I'd done back in November. Although it wouldn't be a real Christmas in our house without me panic-crocheting a soft toy on Christmas Eve, now would it?

Can I point you towards a wonderful blog post written by my friend Laura and, if any of you use Instagram, you may like to look at her account which is endlessly inspiring and one of my favourites. 

I hope you are not feeling too overwhelmed by the pressure to do and buy everything that inevitably occurs at this time of year. How do you strive for balance in your households?