And now we go again...

jwil

Lovely to have time off over Christmas

beanielou

What a lovely break to look forward to. 

Blackcats

That's a great Christmas break from work.  When I was still working our office closed over Christmas and it was such a treat to put on the out of office and sign off for the festive period.  This year I'm trying to think of free/inexpensive ways to make the whole of December special.  We have 2 concerts, 1 of which includes a night away from home so we are calling that the Blackcats Corporation works "do" and thanks to @PennysIntoPounds it also now includes secret Santa gifts.  No prizes for guessing who I'm buying for and who is buying for me 🤣.  During December we plan to watch more Christmas films culminating, as always, with Die Hard on Christmas Eve.  Debating a candle advent calendar from the American named candle people but they seem very expensive this year.  

Well done on the surveys.  I've edged up to £26 so far this month having really struggled to get to £30 for the previous 2 months.

Sun_Addict

I got my American candle advent calendar from candles direct for £17.99. 

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, that's nice amount of time off! 😊

We are shutting for an extra two days (to save on the electric bill, I think 🙄) so that, plus our normal closure, plus the fact that I don't work Fridays means that for just ONE day of annual leave I get 17 days off 🥳😂

PennysIntoPounds

Sorry to hijack EH but @Blackcats, you could do a similar mse advent to what I did last year and will be doing again this year as I enjoyed it so much. Get 24 (or 12) pieces of jewellery or accessories that you hardly ever wear and every day you must wear one of them. It works so well because it makes you dress up for occasions, brings joy when you have nothing more exciting to do than take the bins out but you're wearing eg your pearls to do so, and is a 'good for the soul' winding down of the year as you might find that there are a couple of pieces you never usually wear because they're not *you* anymore or because they have a fault you either need to get fixed or realise you can't be bothered. These things can be sold or put in the charity bag or listed on olio for someone to enjoy who can be bothered.
Also works with items of clothing, doing one thing a day around the home, or in EH's case, sharing a nightcap of a lingering weird beer with Mr EH!

LadyWithAPlan

@PennysIntoPounds great idea on the jewellery advent

EH the xmas break sounds decent

EssexHebridean

PiP with hijacks like that you can hijack away - that is a great idea on the jewellery! I have a set of christmas earrings (one of those cheapy cards with a number of different styles on it) which always gets rolled out in December, but I love the idea of making the effort to wear other bits and bobs I wouldn't usually bring out, too! (I could actually stretch to a set of pearls too, although I probably won't, as they are quire old and I would be twitchy about their "stringing" surviving actual wearing...having said that, there is little point in having them if they don't get worn, is there now?! 

I might try to come up with an December plan for little "nice things" too - possibly not every day, as that won't necessarily work, but we do have some things that would fit with it:
- nice hot chocolate in the cupboard already (we take it on holiday with us) and cinammon sticks ready to go - I can get mini marshmallows to go with it.
- The usual tradition of Christmas carols playing while putting the tree up (that will most likely be the middle weekend of the month)
- those tasty higher strength beers we have - which we would share between us anyway and some of which have been lurking for a ludicrous amount of time!
- Christmas jigsaws - I'm sure we've got a couple in the cupboard
- Mum will come round probably on the sunday before Christmas for tea - another tradition! (HM Mince pies and sausage rolls - usually an unusual variant on the latter - last year was cranberry & brie in with the sausage meat)
- Must line up the festive Bake-off specials to watch, and probably some of the old comedy favourites too...

Need to get my thinking cap on. We will plan a tube-related day out at some stage between Christmas and new year I'm sure - and there is a discussion underway about a trip to Devon but that's not decided as yet.

MSE stuff here is all as it should be
- last night's Tuesday couscous was a proper wintery feast with cauliflower, sweet potato, mushrooms and a red pepper as the veg, all cooked up with a drizzle of smoked rapeseed oil and with lamb chunks (cooked already, from the freezer) thrown in to heat through. I slung half a bag of chestnuts from the freezer in there as well because they've been in there a while and I was keen to use them. Delicious, and it was wolfed down! 
- MrEH is feeding his Oyster today - all fine and planned in, and all being well should see him through to the end of the month. 
- The next two week's grocery shopping need to be frugal - this hasn't been a cheap month so far and I need to really keep the rest of it low. We have plenty in though, both in the storecupboard and the freezer, so that ought to be achievable. 

I'm starting to steer towards the "clean as you go" approach that I heard about on the podcast I listened too last week. It's really baby steps with this one - first thing is just to make a start, though, as that's the only way of getting underway. So ensuring that packaging from food prep goes straight to the bin or recycling, making sure that utensils used while cooking go straight to the dishwasher or next to the sink, and giving surfaces a quick wipe down. I'm also trying to just run an eye over the kitchen last thing to make sure things look relatively clear, which of course starts the next day off better... 

Hoping for some good electricity days coming up - not least as I will need to get washing dealt with! Probably should have put a load on last night really but only remembered it when I got upstairs and could NOT be bothered to go back downstairs. 

greenbee

Thankfully I DID remember the washing last night, and have had enough solar today to use the dryer, do another wash, and run the DW. So am getting caught up!

redofromstart

Please do share which podcast?  I am trying to find my mojo again.

Love the sound of brie and cranberry on the sausage rolls. 

I did smile at your pearls comment, are they worth getting checked and re-strung?