Santas challenge 2017

Katiehound

Well, I have packed away the sewing machine (metaphorically speaking) until after the festive season.

Total of duvets sewn since early Nov: 43
Total of dog coats: 6. for Romanian dog rescue

At least in the end I got a few coats made. One is made from an ironing board cover (and lined with fleece) and 5 have ties made from purple rufflette! (old style kind) The bags of materials haven't diminished much but I can move the made coats on the be stored elsewhere.
I am looking at my own dogs kennel coats and thinking I can make them new ones and move the old ones on.

Off tomorrow
Take dogs to kennels, pack then leave or vice versa! (Except not leave then pack, that formula will not work!)

Wishing everyone a wonderful peaceful Christmas- and a happy HEALTHY wealthy 2019.:xmassign:

chanie

Happy Christmas Eve Eve

Hope everyone is prepped for the big day.

I had a last minute panic about DDs presents and ordered her an extra present which OH will be picking up tomorrow whilst I am at work.

I went to the supermarket today to buy the final items for our Christmas dinner. We have a fairly low key dinner, as the children turn their nose up at lots of foods. We have decided to have a curry takeaway on Xmas Eve in lieu of our low key Xmas dinner. I am at work tomorrow, but we have been told we can finish at 2pm, so i am looking forward to getting home at a decent time.

Merry Xmas. I hope the years worth of planning pays off.

crazy-cat-lady_2

Hope everyone is all Ready and excited for the big day 😁

We had our food delivered. Got a discount on a first shop at Waitrose online. So saved the hassle of hitting the supermarket this near and fighting for the last sprouts! All worked out apart from our big dessert. Heston’s profitercoals. Black profiteroles with orange centres with a smoked orange sauce to drizzle and popping candy. Basically looks like a pile of coals on fire. Looked so nice..I know because we had to eat it already. The date was bad and wouldn’t make it to Christmas and it didn’t freeze. They refunded us thankfully. Should have had minimum 4 days and didn’t. But now we have to go out afterall for a new dessert!! Grr.

Christmas Eve box out for the little one tomorrow. All cards and presents delivered today and some were dropped off here. So think we add all ready.

Just waiting for the sales to start later tomorrow so I can get started for next year 😂

Have a brilliant and hopefully relaxing Christmas Eve and Christmas everyone. And if you can’t relax, there’s always wine and chocolate and a nap in the afternoon xx

Anglea

Hi everyone.


DS2 has just arrived, I've still not finished my to do list for the other arrivals this evening and I have no idea where everyone will put their bags as DS1 and his gf are going straight to the airport for a holiday on the 28th, DS1 has been in France skiing all of last week and America the week before that so I just hope he doesn't bring all his washing lol I've also got my friend arriving later today with the rest of the Christmas food (most already here), she's staying until after the NY. She's cooking two joints of meat to cut up so we can have cold in the week.

It seems unbelievable how we all have so much organising and shopping to do just for mainly one day.

Tomorrow afternoon ex will be bringing my parents here they'll stay a while then will all be taken back when he brings DS2 to this house. He'll be seeing his mother first in the care home, years ago he also used to have Christmas dinner here. I visited her yesterday with him.

Crazy-cat-lady at least it was only one unacceptable item with your delivery, but annoying nevertheless as you have to go shopping again.

Katiehound, that's a fantastic amount of sewing you've done in the last couple of months. I hope you enjoy all your travelling.

Chanie, I hope you manage to get home at a good time today from work

Happy Kitties, hope you enjoy putting up the tree with DD

Hope to read your updates how it all went and it won't be long now until we start talking about the next Christmas.

All the best to you all.

chanie

I am pleased to report back that many of the presents I bought were very well received this year.

Now, its time to start again for 2019!

crazy-cat-lady_2

Good to hear Chanie. Same here, I hope anyway. People seemed happy with them. Our house now looks like a toy shop. My main lesson for next year is to have a big cut back. On everything. I know it’s traditionally a time to splurge. But we have so much food and chocolate left over. The chocolate will last but I’m going to be making a lot of soups and stews to freeze to stop from wasting a lot of the veg and some meat. Toys for my little one too..she was overwhelmed by it all. Too much. Next year definitely getting less.


Got a few bits for next year already in the sales. My niece is sorted for her birthday/Christmas, so that’s one down. A few toys bought for friends kids. Also three general gifts. But that might be it for those as I am cutting back. I ended up with some I never used last year.


Husband is going into Manchester today. We were going to go too so I could get to card factory and get all the Mum/dad/sister/husband cards cheap. They’ll all be a few pence now. But we still are 100% better so, I’ll have to give it a miss.

Hope everyone had a good day.

Happy_Kitties

Morning everyone

We never got the tree up........lights, other decs and space cleared ready for the tree but DD wasn't very well before Christmas, Christmas day really good, had messages from friends and cousins- presents went down really well.
Then yesterday DD feeling better wanted to do Boots and Card Factory but I wasn't feeling great. We went and got quite a few bargains. Really surprised by Boots, was more like a 70% sale.
Then DD went down hill, been up most of the night with her and into an appointment for the docs this morning.

Reading through I'm glad everyone had a good Christmas, being prepared definitely works for sure. I've now picked up quite a few birthday presents and Christmas presents for next year. Storage is a problem(vowed I wasnt going to get things so early as storage becomes a real issue thru the year but on a good note DD got all of her presents at the right time this year-I checked them off beforehand!!)

CCL what we did with food. I made the most of the 29p veg and always buy extra on the meat for cold cuts after and to get some meals in the freezer but I didn't (when i hadn't eaten it!) buy so much chocolate and biscuits which I was glad about as had quite a bit which will comfortably last us until DD goes back to uni.

Having got quite a few bargain presents already I'm going to take a look at what I've spent and see if I can reduce birthday and Christmas budgets this year-that is the aim and I need to work out the final totals for this year......always have a challenge with a friend and have a feeling I've gone slightly over!

chanie

Happy Kitties I hope you and your DD are feeling better now. I love that you both are already prepping for Xmas 2019!!!


I too have started prepping - I bought some wrapping paper and stocking filler from Sainsburys, saving £8.10. I am trying to avoid buying stuff just for the sake of it, so I will only take advantage of the sales if there is something I could really make use of, gift wise.

crazy-cat-lady_2

We wrapped up and braved Manchester. Got all the personal cards for next year. Plus a good few from all of us type cards and some rolls of paper. All 75% off. 20 items £6.40. Pretty happy with that 😊
Something off the list that I don’t need to think about. Now to go home and collapse. It was a bit busy and chaotic in town.

chanie

Crazy cat well done on your bargains, you have done amazingly well.

SIL got me some PJs from a supermarket for Xmas, which I decided to exchange for something else. I guessed they cost sround £10, but when I got to the till, they scanned at £3.50! I took the exchange, but in hindsight, I probably should have taken the Pjs back and given them to the charity shop.