OS Christmas Support thread & timetable

mummysaver

Just a quick reminder, booking online for Santa's Grotto at Harrods opens today! It's free and really lovely usually. They can take your pic with Santa if you want and I think last year we paid £10 - worth the money for the look on ds's face at having to visit Santa lol! Well his 3 sisters enjoyed it!

Got another pressie yesterday - was visiting a National Trust place, and found a fab door knocker with a boot as the knocker part! Only £5 but looks really quite expensive, will be giving it to bil and sil as they live in a really old cottage and it'll fit right in!

Just need to get on with making all the jams and chutneys and stuff for the food hampers now, have got everyone collecting jars for me at the moment! Bought some nice kilner jars in Ikea, but will be too expensive to put everything in these!

Rowan9

Anniebooklover - is there a racing stable near you? Some of them do a day tour or shorter tour. Maybe your dad would like that? What about something clothes-wise from a race course? My DH is waiting for his hat (baseball style) to arrive from The Curragh in Ireland but also has a Newmarket waterproof jacket. Books on horse racing? DH has a good one called Scams and Jiggery-pokery (actually I made that title up - I've gone to look at the book and it's called Ringers and Rascals, a Taste of Skulduggery by David Ashforth). I got it for 2p!!!! on Amazon so it was £2.77 with postage - hardback too. Good stories about cheats re horse racing including a man who painted (literally!) a horse to make it a different colour so it could pretend to be another one. I've also bought him a limited print of a race horse he likes - I could look up the supplier if you are interested.
Ok, enough racing ideas methinks
w

suzie_wong

Anniebooklover, don't know whether you use Tescos at all, but they have this in their clubcard deals.

About this Deal

Ownaracehorse.co.uk is the leading small share, big thrills racehorse syndication company. Offering a range of both Flat and National Hunt racehorses based around the country with five different trainers with 13 recorded wins from 15 horses in training last year. Choose from a range of racehorses and enjoy a full season of ownership with your chosen horse(s). Your share entitles you to attend the racecourse as an owner when your horse runs - meeting your trainer and jockey in the parade ring - as well as attending the regular trainer yard visits. You also share in any prizemoney your horse may win*, which is paid in direct relation to the share you own.
Shares start at only £80.


If you use clubcard deals, you would only need from £20 in deals tokens. Hope this helps.

anniebooklover

wmf and suzy wong thanks for those ideas. I have £16 in Clubcard deals (don't know when the next lot will be issued) but like the idea of him owning a racehorse. Will look into that one. I have looked at books to do with horse-racing, wmf, but my Dad claims that reading sends him to sleep - other than the betting pages in the paper, of course! :rolleyes: The jacket is a good idea though so I will look into that too.

That's what I love about this forum! Everyone is so helpful! Thanks again. x

scattymam1

I love christmas too and I love doing it MSE, knowing you've got people really thoughtful nice pressies but for cheaper or for nothing if you do surveys like I do for vouchers and use them for christmas.

I so would like to be a bit more old style this christmas and will be making quite a few things this year. Cooking a lot more from scratch, growing my own veggies for the dinner?!etc;

But my main aim is to be organised this year. I want all bought pressies to be bought by end of October and then everything wrapped by end of November so all made items can be done with some degree of enjoyment and not rushed my cut off date for them will be Dec 15th I think.

I just remember the stress of last year, I was still shopping(with 2 year old) the week before christmas. I was having paddys at midnight on christmas eve trying to wrap my hampers up and didn't get round to preparing the pork and turkey til one in the morning!!! so tired on christmas day - will not be happening this year - I WILL BE ORGANISED.

Will read through this thread thoroughly now but am glad someone has brought it out.

DdraigGoch

Another idea that struc me was the Magazine Group via Quidco have lots of 3 for a £1 offers, that might be a nice idea for someone. They have others such as 3 for £3, and even one for 12 for £0.00 - it's The Week, news digest of the previous week, plus The Oldie for £1.00 and with some of the cheaper ones if Quidco can get the transaction to track, you end up in profit!!

Hope that helps

Jack's_mummy

wmf wrote: »

Books on horse racing? DH has a good one called Scams and Jiggery-pokery (actually I made that title up - I've gone to look at the book and it's called Ringers and Rascals, a Taste of Skulduggery by David Ashforth). I got it for 2p!!!! on Amazon so it was £2.77 with postage - hardback too. Good stories about cheats re horse racing including a man who painted (literally!) a horse to make it a different colour so it could pretend to be another one. I've also bought him a limited print of a race horse he likes - I could look up the supplier if you are interested.

w

THANKYOU! I never know what to get my dad as his only interest is horse racing and work. This year he is sorted. Thankyou:beer:

judi24

This thread has really motivted me! I'm trying hard to reduce cost of Christmas this year as I have just taken on a bigger mortgage to buy my ex out of my house! But I have 4 kids so Christmas is never cheap!

With Ideas from OS and inspiration from someone on DFW board I went to Boots this week - got a whole load of bargins! Spend arond £90 but got loads of presents and made a big start on my mum's hamper (got arounf £270 worth of stuff!).

I came home wrote a full list of people and prezzies and now all I need to do is make biscuits/cakes/sweets for some people and i'm done - except my own kids - although I've got 5 No7 and 6 skincare vouchers so I'm going to try to get some stocking fillers for my make up adict daughters!

I am now looking for boxes/containers for sweets etc - does any one have any ides or places to get them?

I would also like to try to make truffles or something like that for the grandads - any ideas or recipes would be great - i woulld like to try some out before Christmas!

I am so impressd with myself as I'm normally rushing around in December and ALWAYS oversped!!!!

All I need to do is bake in wrap! I even found a load of left over Christmas cards so shouldn't need to buy cards either!

The kids will make cards for the family (found stuff to make them too - its amazing the things I keep!)

Thanks all for your inspiration

jessicamb

judi24 wrote: »

I am now looking for boxes/containers for sweets etc - does any one have any ides or places to get them?

anywhere like Dunelm mill, Matalan, Au Naturale should have cheap little glass jars (well I think they are cheap - dont shoot me if I'm wrong!) that would be ideal.

scattymam1

mummysaver wrote: »

Got another pressie yesterday - was visiting a National Trust place, and found a fab door knocker with a boot as the knocker part! Only £5 but looks really quite expensive, will be giving it to bil and sil as they live in a really old cottage and it'll fit right in! quote]

Please mummysaver - where did you get the boot door knocker from? was it a national trust gift or was it unique to the place you visited. Would be brilliant for my dad...