Christmas Cards 2012

In these internet-dominated days there has been much discussion about whether or not to send Christmas cards any more.  A greeting on Facebook is instant - and free - and can reach friends and family around the world at the click of a mouse.  I'm a huge fan of this idea, having friends in several different countries, but a part of me is still extremely fond of the ritual of writing, sending and receiving 'real' cards.  So this year I've done it both ways!

Of course having a baby in the house provides all manner of excitement over the festive season.  Poor Ted has been subject to all manner of comedy dressing up - not that he seems to mind too much...

But he was more than slightly baffled when I plonked him in his Bumbo and starting painting his feet!

He soon began to enjoy it though; I suspect it tickled a bit!

In order to get good prints I discovered that best best thing to do was to use clothes-pegs to attach the paper to a hardback book.  You can then press the book onto the foot, rather than the other way round!  As you can see I also covered the floor with newspaper and had a bowl of warm water and a cloth within easy reach.  This worked really well.  He couldn't reach his paint-covered feet whilst wedged into the Bumbo, and he remained pretty cheerful whilst I covered at least 20 sheets of paper with his footprints!  Many were unusable, but I decided that if I did loads I'd get enough that were suitable.

 

Once the footprints were dry I cut them out and spent an evening in front of some festive television turning them into cards.  The reindeer ears and antlers are drawn on with felt pen, and the noses and eyes cut out of paper before being glued on.  The tree trunk is simply drawn with coloured pen, and the tree adorned with some sparkly stickers.  The reindeer are my favourite.

This was a fun project and a nice memento of Ted's first Christmas.  It seems that I'm not the only mum who had this idea:  here's Nic's Christmas card made by her little boy.

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!

 

Favourite Christmas Songs - The Kitch Collection

Our Christmas CD collection used to be almost exclusively classical as both Rob and I have spent years singing in Church Choirs in the UK.  However, we then moved to Canada, and in close proximity to Walmart we soon found our Christmas repertoire expanding rapidly...  the Elvis Christmas Album, Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers 'Once Upon a Christmas', the Beach Boys sing Christmas, you name it, we bought it!

We're now both total converts to 'Kitchmas' in all its glory and really enjoy listening to such a mixture of religious and secular music at the time of year.

So here, again in no particular order, are my favourite Kitch Christmas songs:

Hard Candy Christmas - Dolly Parton

"It costs a lot of money to look this cheap".  It looks worryingly like she's not wearing a top in this video...




Marshmallow World - Bing Crosby

I couldn't find a nice video to this one, but this is the version of the song that I love.




Forget You Santa - Cee Lo Green and Michael Jackson

We don't have this on CD, I just stumbled across it on youtube - and loved it!  I think it's so clever when songs are 'fused' together and these are two absolute classics.



Blue Christmas - Elvis

The King sings Christmas in his own inimitable style.  Neither Rob nor I can resist singing along to this one, complete with melodramatic swoops up to all the notes!



Last Christmas - Wham!

One from my childhood, and I still love it now.  Here's George and Andrew in all their bouffant-haired glory in the original 1984 video:



Stay a Little Longer Santa - Shemekia Copeland

One of my favourite tracks from a fabulous album that we picked up in Las Vegas, a charity CD sold by 'Bath and Body Works'.  It has all kinds of obscure festive tracks, either little-known songs, or well-known songs such by different people (e.g. Rascal Flatts singing 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen!).  I love it.



So whether your Christmas is a classic one or a kitch one - I hope it's very merry for you all!  We'll be celebrating in our camper-car somewhere on South Island, New Zealand, but I'll be back on the blog in the New Year.

Favourite Christmas Songs - The Classical Collection

December is here (NB it was 'just here' when I started writing this - it's half over now!), so we are allowed to listen to Christmas music!  I say 'allowed', but this is a self-imposed rule in our household.  We both adore Christmas music and have a large selection of seasonal CDs, but if we start listening too soon (and when we start we have them on every day) we get tired of them before Christmas itself even arrives.  So December the 1st it is.

We have had several 'Desert Island Discs' discussions about our favourite Christmas music, and although the list seems to change every time I think about it, I thought it would be fun to post some of my top picks here.

Our CDs are pretty evenly split between the classical and the kitch, and it's pretty hard to compare the two, hence the separate posts.

Here, in no particular order, are my favourite 'classic' Christmas carols.  And huge thanks to whoever is responsible for posting King's College, Cambridge, contributions onto youtube - this post would not have been possible without you!

In the Bleak Midwinter - Harold Darke

A beautiful, simple version of this classic carol.  I've sung the first verse of this as a solo before now, and I like it because it's nicely in the range of my voice.



Bethlehem Down - Peter Warlock

A little-known modern carol - well, little-known to non-singers I suspect.  Hauntingly gorgeous, makes shivers run down my spine every time I hear it.




Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day - John Gardner


A beautifully lively and catchy version of this classic carol.  I first sang this many years ago with a choir called 'Iscavoces', a group of singing friends from Exeter University.  It's been a favourite of mine ever since, even though I haven't sung it for over 10 years now.



Nativity Carol - John Rutter

Many people might say that this carol, indeed anything by John Rutter, should properly belong in the 'kitch' post that will follow this one, but I think Rutter has become a Christmas classic!  I can't imagine a Christmas without some Rutter carols.  I wanted some other Rutter carols (Shepherd's Pipe Carol, Angel Carol), but many are not available for 'embedding' from you tube, so I've gone with this lovely one instead.





It Came Upon a Midnight Clear - EH Sears

I must confess to getting a bit tired of singing some of the traditional congregational carols (Once in Royal...  yawn!) but this is one I never tire of.  The words are just so poetic.  They can be found here if you want to remind yourself of them.

Back from Thailand

We got back to Brunei last Friday - but as it was back to work on Monday, of course our holiday is fast becoming a distant memory!  Isn't that always the way.

However, we did have an amazing time.  Spending time in 2 very different places was perfect - we enjoyed a few days of the busyness and bustle of Bangkok (oh so different to sleepy Brunei!) but then had the contrast of total relaxation on a beach on Koh Samet. 

We spent Christmas itself on the beach - a lovely idea... although we were a little surprised that we both felt rather odd about it.  My Australian and New Zealander colleagues disagree of course, but Christmas in the heat just feels wrong!  It's clearly just how we're conditioned - 33 Christmases spent in England plus 1 in Canada means that in my mind the festive season should be about getting cosy inside when it's chilly outside. 

This didn't mean that we didn't enjoy it - it was an incredibly beautiful place - but we did both visibly relax once we got to Boxing Day and the mental pressure to feel 'Christmassy' was over!

After 5 nights on Koh Samet we headed back to Bangkok for a further 3 nights.  Our hotel for this final part of the trip was great,  right on the back of the river so we could escape the nightmarish city traffic and hop on the water taxis to get around.  We did the tourist sights - the Grand Palace, Wat Pho, etc - as well as a bit more shopping (mainly Birkenstocks and fairy-lights!).

And of course - and there will be a LOT more to come on this topic - we ate lots of lovely Thai food!  We've always eaten quite a lot of Thai dishes, but are now inspired to cook them much more.  We live in Asia so sourcing the ingredients isn't too much of a problem, and we're determined to make the most of it.

Happy New Year to you all!

Merry Christmas!

I know, I know, I'm usually the one complaining about Christmas coming too early - it's too early to hear carols in September, it's too early to buy mince-pies in October, etc, etc.  But this year it's all a bit different.

Being a Muslim country most people here just don't celebrate Christmas.  There is a sizeable Chinese population here so some Chinese-run stores (such as Hua Ho supermarket) embrace the season, as do some of the local hotels with an international clientele, but generally Christmas just isn't happening here.  In many ways it's quite refreshing not to be assaulted by Christmas paraphernalia for months, and in this climate it would feel odd for those of us used to Christmas in England or Canada to be getting festive...  but it's also a little strange.

Generally Rob and I tend to eat Asian food here in Brunei.  I've always found it fairly unsatisfactory to try to recreate favourite dishes from home (not to mention horribly expensive) so it's rice and noodles most days for us!  Delicious, and healthy too (we've both lost half a stone since arriving here in August).  However, we decided that we just had to do a proper Christmas Dinner.

We're off to Thailand for Christmas, so we actually had our own Christmas at the weekend - on the 12th December.  The 'tree' (Brunei-style) has been decorated for a while...

We bought a chicken because the only turkeys we could find here were huge - far too big for two.  We did spend lots of money in the non-Halal room in Supasave though, and bought streaky bacon and cocktail sausages as I couldn't imagine doing Christmas Dinner without bacon-wrapped chipolatas!

Rob has always had Chestnut stuffing for Christmas, and it's a tradition I'm most happy for us to continue.  We have rejected the tedious and labour-intensive routine of boiling and peeling chestnuts for this and now use a packet of chestnuts - surprisingly easily available here - and equally as delicious as the hand-peeled ones.

In an effort to keep the expats happy Supasave is stocking sprouts imported from Australia.  They were extortionately expensive (over $13 per kg) but I bought some because, well, it just isn't Christmas Dinner without them is it?  They weren't great though - too big and rather chewy - so I don't think I'd bother again, Christmas or not.

We also had carrots, roast potatoes, roast parsnip and cheesy cauliflower - another of Rob's (and my) favourite roast dinner accompaniments.  I rejected the tins of cranberry sauce and instead we had my homemade apple-chilli jelly, which I had brought over from the UK (a small nod to Asian cuisine in a very British meal!).  And Coleman's English Mustard.  Of course.

We had also imported a Tescos Finest Christmas Pudding!  It had been lurking in our cupboard in the UK for ages - years probably, since I have made my own for at least the last 3 years.  I seem to recall Rob buying it because it was half price...  if you know Rob you'll know that that's pretty typical!

It wasn't the greatest pudding ever, not a patch on a home-made one, and not helped by the fact that we microwaved it and the microwave timer got stuck so it had a rather longer cooking time than it should have done!  However, we flamed it with rum, and doused it liberally with Rum Sauce and it did the job.

It was a delicious meal and it made us think that, despite the tropical climate and lack of air-conditioning in the kitchen, we might cook a roast dinner occasionally - this was our first one since we arrived at the start of August.  We could tell we're just not used to it any more though - we were both positively groaning, we felt so full afterwards!  Still, that's the way a Christmas Dinner should be!

I hope your Christmas Dinners are equally delicious.

A Busy Week...

Since I last blogged...

* I've finished my first term teaching here.  So nice to have 4 weeks off - and we're looking forward to our holiday in Thailand in a couple of weeks.  We'll be spending some time in Bangkok, then a few days on Koh Samet.

* We've had a couple of exciting visitors to the house, one by day - on the pondok,

and one on the window by night.

 * We've dragged out the Christmas decorations and filled the house with fairy lights.

* We've decorated the Christmas pot-plant (they don't sell 'real' Christmas trees out here, and we didn't want a fake one).  There's lots of old favourites on the tree...

But the new decorations for 2010 are my mosaic baubles, made by me at our mosaic classes run by Paula.

* We've also had our Loan Service Christmas Ball, this year with a Medieval theme.  It was a superb evening, the Community Centre was brilliantly decorated, and everyone had made such an effort with their costumes.  I adapted an outfit I already had (adding sleeves and a pointy hat) and I made Rob's.

It was a bit of a sad time too as we had to say goodbye to Paula and John.  Saying goodbye to friends and neighbours is an inevitable and all-too-regular part of military life - and this goodbye was tinged with envy that John and Paula are heading back to live in lovely snowy Edinburgh!

They'll be much missed here, but I know they'll enjoy their new life back in Scotland - and I'm sure we'll meet again!

Christmas Wishes

Dear Friends,

May this Christmas be full of...

lovely gifts...

cosy sweaters...

snow...

 

 and fun in said snow...

 

great friends (thanks Sarah - I love it!) and wonderful memories of good times past...

 

gorgeous edible treats...

 

 and childhood nostalgia (this one is Rob's).

 

May Santa bring all you ask for...

 

may all your Christmas wishes be granted...

 

may we all stay safe...

 

and whatever faith you have - or none - may this season bring blessings, peace, joy and goodwill.

 Love from Kate x

The Weather Outside is Frightful...

But the scene in front of the fire has been delightful.  What could be nicer than sitting on the sofa, warming up after a brisk walk with a cup of tea and a toasted crumpet, and surrounded by recipe books?   I'm thinking of making the Incredibly Easy Chocolate Fruit Cake, as pictured in Nigella's Christmas book.  It's the phrase 'incredibly easy' that's tempting me... oh yes, and the word 'chocolate'.  I'm also keen to find an excuse to use my 'Hologram Gold Disco Glitter' once again - it looks stunning on top of a dark cake such as this one.

The Jane Asher book is from the local library.  I'm glad I didn't buy it, her writing style really irritates me, although there are some nice-looking recipes that I might just take note of before returning the book.

A little later on and the tea and crumpets are replaced by wine...  and the Christmas socks have emerged!  Ho ho ho.   It's still a little early for us to be decorating the house, although we nearly went to buy the Christmas tree this last weekend - we've decided to go next Saturday instead.  We did however collect some lovely holly.  Last year it was almost impossible to find any with berries on it, so this year we were keen to grab some as soon as we saw it.  We put some behind every picture in the sitting room, and I'll add some ivy too soon.  I like to use as much natural greenery as I can... but leaving plenty of room for some tasteless kitch decorations too!

Talking of kitch, we've also started playing our extensive collection of Christmas music.  Before we went to Canada we had a very tasteful selection of classic Christmas carols and festive choral music.  Now we have a broad range of other 'classics' such as Elvis' Christmas Album and The Beach Boys sing Christmas (thanks to a crazy moment in the cut-price music section of Walmart!).  My favourite album is a double CD I bought - rather oddly - at a Bath and Body Works shop in Las Vegas, entitled Glitter and Glow.  It has a fantastic selection of Christmas hits, some classics, some new recordings.  One of my very favourite tracks is this one from Bing Crosby:



Now if only the rain would stop... let it snow!

Advent Thoughts

I've never been one of those people who gets organised for Christmas months in advance.  I shudder when I hear Christmas carols in November, and I couldn't entertain the thought of having a Christmas tree in the house until the middle of December at the very latest (although I know from my 2 years in Canada that for many people Christmas starts as soon as Hallowe'en ends!).  It's all down to personal preference.

But having said that, I couldn't help feeling a little bit excited when Rob got this box down from the loft last weekend...  I can't quite believe we have enough 'Xmas Decs' to fill a box that big, but no doubt there'll be lots of things I've forgotten about since last year.

As it's now December 1st I'm off to put on a Christmas CD.  We have a self-imposed house-rule that we don't listen to them before now and consequently I'm really looking forward to hearing some festive music.  We went to a lovely Advent Carol service last Sunday and enjoyed singing lots of Advent hymns, which reminded me why I really do love this time of year.

I opened the first door of the Advent Calender with my class this morning and was delighted that - for the first time in the 11 years I have been doing this job - no child moaned about the fact that there was no chocolate inside it!  I also lit an Advent Candle with them; something I had never tried due to an irrational fear of the combination of flames and overly-interested small children.  They were fascinated by it, and we even managed to get in a bit of Science by observing the change from solid to liquid wax, and then liquid to solid as it cooled.  (Fortunately there was no chance to observe the combustibility of exercise books, furniture, thatched roof, etc...)

May your Advent be full of little excitements too!

Bright Copper Kettles and Warm Woollen Mittens...

So enchanted have I been with Mara's fabulous idea of sharing our kitchen favourites, I thought I'd start a new one... show us you CHRISTMAS favourites!

We put our decorations up last weekend and I was delighted anew by some of the lovely things we have for the Christmas tree. After 11 months hidden in the attic it was great to rediscover these baubles. (That's the decorations in the attic, not me...).

So, here we are...

As you can see we aim for the 'jumble-sale' effect with our tree. Yes, it's a little crowded; no, it's in no way co-ordinated, but nonetheless it brings a smile to my face every time I see it. Christmas is no time for good taste and elegance now is it?

These teeny sweaters must surely rank among the 'best Christmas tree decorations EVER'. I find them adorable. We bought some in the UK over the last few years (from Accessorize) but were highly excited to find some in Canada too... and even more excited that we found them after Christmas so they were 75% off.

Another favourite decoration is this cute knitted monkey. My friend Vicky sent him to me last year, bought on her travels in Africa. I have a group of brilliant University friends and the 5 of us have a long-running amusement with monkeys (loooooong story!). The sheer variety of monkey-themed gifts that have passed between us in the 10 years since we graduated never ceases to amaze me.

I think it's nice that the tree is a reflection of the things that we love... so of course here's my cookie-baking ornament. This was a present from my fellow-foodie-friend Sarah this year, given to me a few weeks early so we could enjoy it before Christmas.

Something Rob and I both enjoy - the snow, and snowshoeing. We had a fabulous snowshoe walk last Winter, using snowshoes borrowed for a weekend from Base supply, and hope to do the same again this year. We bought these mini snowshoes in the LL Bean flagship store in Freeport, Maine, whilst on our Fall road-trip. I love to pick up Christmas tree decorations from around the world, so each one brings back memories. Mind you, I give thanks to the great LL Bean every time I put on my fantastic down-jacket that I bought there on the same trip. It's been incredibly warm over the last few weeks when Winter arrived here with a vengeance. You can see a mini-cardigan in the shot too.

My fondness for Emma Bridgewater is well documented, and how fortunate that I have friends with the same taste! This is another gift from Sarah - it a gorgeous scented candle, which smells wonderful. It's great when you find a friend who loves the same things as you do, and Sarah definitely falls into this category. Gifts this year from her have ranged from the delightfully tasteful Emma Bridgewater to the delightfully kitch Elvis rubber duck and the Jim'll Fix It soap on a rope. Comedy gold!

And so we move to the fireplace. In an ideal world this would be a real fire, but we're in an Army Quarter so don't get much choice about this kind of thing. However, we wouldn't be able to put fairy lights on the hearth if it was real, so I guess you could say we're making the best of it. The fairy-light ball on the table next to the fire is a favourite of mine, though not strictly a Christmas favourite, as it's there all year. I shamelessly stole the idea from my sister-in-law (or possibly it was my niece?) and made it as a present for Rob last Christmas. The three stockings that hang from the mantelpiece were bought here in Canada last year in the marvellous 'Michaels' art and craft superstore. I have to ration my visits there, otherwise I could bankrupt us.

As you can see from the mantelpiece, we like to have lots of real greenery in the house, and had an expedition out on the cross-country skis last weekend to gather some. Most is over the fireplace, but lots of our pictures are adorned with a good sprig of it too. Or an entire branch... I don't go for subtlety here.

And what am I listening to whilst decorating the house for the festive season?! Pure Christmas kitch of course. My favourite ever Christmas CD is the one on the left, bought in Bath and Body Works in Las Vegas last December. It's a charity double CD, a compilation of old and new, containing such delights as 'It's a Marshmallow World' by Bing Crosby, and 'Green Christmas' by the Barenaked Ladies. I love it. A recent acquisition is the Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers album, a treasure unearthed in Walmart recently. 'Hard Candy Christmas' is my favourite song. And of course Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without John Rutter. Perhaps you won't have heard of him, but anyone who has ever sung in a choir will be familiar with his gloriously harmonised carols. It became trendy in the singing world to dismiss his work as slightly 'naff', but that's all part of its charm. It's fabulous to sing, and really accessible to listen to.




I'll finish with another new purchase - this wonderful Santa's washing line, bought recently in Canadian Tire. It's hanging across the kitchen window and actually brought a spontaneous smile to my face this morning as I staggered down the stairs, half asleep, in search of my morning cup of tea. And after all, that's what Christmas should be all about - bringing a smile to your face in whatever way works for you.

Happy Christmas to one and all.