Time to think about Christmas

seabright

I have my cards - huge markdowns in WHS last Jan. Last year my family decided on £15 to spend on each (except partners and children) and it was a great success - it actually made Christmas shopping fun, as it was a kind of game. Can really recommend it.

Bought a great book from from 1930's on a subject my DP's interested in from a junk shop on Friday, so that's part of his done. It has a beautiful embossed hard-back cover, so I'm really pleased with that.

I have 3 fancy dress costumes to make over the next month, so am getting those out of the way before I really start thinking about Christmas.

Pink.

Hi Keith,

As has been mentioned we have a board specially for posting about Christmas preparations so I've moved your thread to it.

Good luck with your planning! I'm the sort of person who refuses to think about Christmas until after Halloween.

Pink

NickyBo_2

Hillie - thanks for the blackberry gin recipe, it sounds delicious. I have LOADS of blackberries in my garden so I will definitely be making this for some people. I buy the mini bottles of wine, usually about 4 for £5. DH drinks the wine and I use the bottles for flavoured vodkas and now flavoured gin


I will also be making lots of fudge again this year. I made some for my Dad last year and it went down a treat, so more people will be getting it this year. My niece loves homemade fudge so she will be getting a big box full of different flavoured fudge all in cellophane bags with printed labels. I also got her lots of Bodyshop things in the sale - I spent £15 on £60 worth of stuff!


I will be using Ebay for a lot of my son's presents. He's only 3 so he doesn't care or know if things are new or not. I have been selling on Ebay all year so have built up a nice balance in Paypal. I am now using that to buy his presents and I see it like it's almost free. I got him some brilliant Star Wars figures for a fraction of the shop price, he's going to be so pleased with them!


I'm so jealous of anyone who has found a supply of sloes! I really want to make sloe gin but I haven't found any sloes yet. If anyone knows of any in the Doncaster area, please let me know!

alja

Some great ideas here for christmas! I never ever ever cook (I still live with my parents) but I love the idea of making chutney's and flavoured vodkas etc, I may have to find out how to do this & give it a go! There's bushes near me that i know used to have blackberries on so I may have to go peak! will keep looking in this thread for ideas!

NickyBo_2

ALJA - this link will give you some ideas for the flavoured vodkas - http://mixthatdrink.com/skittles-vodka-tutorial/
They use Skittles but you can use any sweets really. The ones I have tried are Werthers (these are the best and make a gorgeous toffee flavoured vodka), blackcurrant and liquorice hard sweets, lemon sherberts. I've also been told Foxes Glacier mints and Blackjacks are very tasty in vodka (not together though!) so I might give them a try this year.

abatha

This has been the topic of my blog post today, I'm going to get cracking on some of the sewing projects soon!
These are my plans so far -
White Chocolate and Cranberry Cookies

Owls - you may have seen me post these on https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2947186

Russian Doll Cushion as featured on the Hobby Craft Website -http://www.hobbycraft.co.uk/Pages/Ideas/Idea.aspx?id=1252 (Ive started one of these but even by blowing the template up onto a3 I would not call it a cushion at all.

Bags of Gingerbread Men, Chocolate Truffles and Fudge

Snowman Soup

LJM

mine is more of a crafty xmas im doing craft hampers for the children,lots of sticky bits paper pens glue etc,i have made my xmas cards,and have started my jewellery gifts i am making,keyrings/braclelets/xmas tree decs and sets,for the men it will be hampers but looking for bits to pop in them at the moment

Gettingtherequickly

I'm clearly a bit stupid, but how the heck do you make a Christmas cake in a bean tin?

alja

NickyBo wrote: »

ALJA - this link will give you some ideas for the flavoured vodkas - http://mixthatdrink.com/skittles-vodka-tutorial/
They use Skittles but you can use any sweets really. The ones I have tried are Werthers (these are the best and make a gorgeous toffee flavoured vodka), blackcurrant and liquorice hard sweets, lemon sherberts. I've also been told Foxes Glacier mints and Blackjacks are very tasty in vodka (not together though!) so I might give them a try this year.

Oooh thank you! My dad loves Werthers so I might have to try that one!

Spendless

pinkmami wrote: »

:xmastree::snow_grin:xmassign::xmassmile:rudolf::santa2:

Found some Echo Falls small spritzer bottles in Iceland for £4 for 4. She can have 2 of them & I'll keep the other 2 in the fridge. I'm not a wine drinker but always have a bottle for visitors which usually goes down the drain a few weeks later! I find these for a £1 each ideal as I have no waste then.

Save the bottles. My MIL made sloe gin for all family members last year but was struggling to find enough suitable bottles for us all to have a 'stocking filler' size sample. My DH doesn't drink wine and I found a standard bottle too large, so I drink these mini bottles and since Jan I have been saving them for her.