If we haven't got it we will go without.

Another wonderful sunset.

The cake is  marzipaned, but still  needs some decoration,

Last batch of mince pies made.

three dozen mince pies have been made and frozen, we always make Fleur pastry for our mince pies, it takes longer to make than shortcrust pastry but is worth the effort for mince pies. Starter for Christmas day is just smoked salmon with tiger prawns so no preparation needed for that, St. Stevens day will be home made duck liver pate, still to be made, apart from that everything is organised.

First form the round out of willow wands.

Two hours later, one wreath, cost, less than two euros.

I've made the wreath for the door, just some greenery for the candelabra and the fireplace and that will be the decorations done. As I'm more or less up to date with the festive preparations I can start sewing another cushion cover.

First cushion cover done as a tapestry.

Second cushion cover done in bargella stitch.

We have also made twelve pots of lime and lemon marmalade,

A real treat, lime marmalade.

The limes were on offer as were the organic lemons, total cost for twelve pots, six euros and thirteen cents, I have no idea how much a pot of lime marmalade is nowadays or indeed if you can even buy it here, but I know it would be a lot more than fifty one cents a pot.
We have plenty of real ale in the house, we would both rather drink that nowadays, we can get British beer cheaper than Irish ale which is a shame as there are now some excellent Irish craft beers on the market including one brewed just a couple of miles away from us. Doing a check on our drinks cupboard, (sounds like we drink a lot, we don't) we find we have plenty of red wine and even a bottle of Cava, there's even a couple of bottles of white wine which is a real mystery to us as we are red wine drinkers and five bottles of home made pea pod wine, now three years old, why did we make that I ask myself. Christmas wont cost us very much at all. The one thing that I might have gone a bit mad on is the cheese, we both love cheese and find it hard to resist especially if it's one we have not come across before, fortunately our friends who are coming also like good cheese so it wont go to waste. I wonder what other people go over the top with.

Freddy loves a box.

 

Decembers sunsets