I used to have a bunch of different Playmobil ones I'd set up every year...but they take up too much space, so this year I'm just sticking to some classic wood ones where you put up a different number every day. Like, one has little wooden trees with numbers on it and you change the trees each day to show how many days are left. Good fun
The Lego one looks cool, but Lego's always so expensive! (Not compared to diamonds, but yeah...lol )
"It's not a dream anymore. It's worth fighting for."
"Well, if it's not real you can't hold it in your hands
You can't feel it with your heart
And I won't believe it.
But if it's true
You can see it with your eyes
Oh, even in the dark
And that's where I want to be, yeah" - Paramore
As we are approaching Christmas, we need to start baking Christmas food! Tastes good, looks good, and is festive. Now, I’m lactose intolerant and it’s quite hard to find Christmas recipes that don’t involve chocolate or milk or such like. So I’m sharing with you my lacto free Christmas cake recipe! Also bare in mind you have to soak the fruit in rum for 24 hours, so it will take a while but so worth it!
Hopefully what your cake will look like!
Ingredients:
225g (8oz) dairy-free spread
900g (2lb) mixed dried fruit
100g (3 1/2oz) glace cherries
225ml (8fl oz) dark rum
5 free range eggs, separated
100g (3 1/2oz) unsweetened, tinned chestnut puree or tofu or 1 large banana
100g (3 1/2oz) rice flour
50g (1 3/4oz) gram flour (chick pea flour)
2tbsp mixed spice
225g (8oz) soft brown sugar
150ml (1/4pt) clear honey
How to make yummy cake:
1] Soak the dried fruit and cherries in rum for 24 hours.
2] Preheat the oven to 150°C/300°F/gas 2. Using a little dairy-free spread, grease and line a 23cm (9in) deep cake tin with non stick baking parchment.
3] Separate the eggs. Add the egg yolks to the chestnut puree and blend until smooth.
4] Mix the flours and mixed spice together. Cream the dairy-free spread and the sugar together and beat in spoonfuls of the chestnut puree mixture and the flour until all is added.
5] Stir in the dried fruit with rum and honey. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold into the cake mixture.
6] Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 2-2 1/2 hrs. Store the cake wrapped in baking parchment and tinfoil until required.
And voila! Enjoy your tasty Christmas cake!
When we lose twenty pounds... we may be losing the twenty best pounds we have! We may be losing the pounds that contain our genius, our humanity, our love and honesty. ~Woody Allen
Is a chocolate muffin loving glitter ball
In the United States, the festive season traditionally begins on the fourth Thursday in November, just after the Thanksgiving holiday. On Thanksgiving Day, a spectacular parade is taken out in New York City that has the smiling figure of Santa Claus participating in it. It indicates the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Department stores, shopping malls and small shops ready themselves appropriately for the season to attract shoppers and get them to spend quite a fe Christmas trees, gifts, apparels, greeting cards and suchlike.
In the final days leading up to Christmas Day which is December 25, small evergreen trees are seen to be established in every home and beautifully decorated with colored lights, tinsel, angels, stars and bright ornaments. The exterior of almost every house and the adjoining shrubbery is adorned with strands of electric lights. Strings of electric lights are used not only to adorn mantles and doorways, rafters, roof lines, and porch railings of individual homes but also of public/commercial buildings, departmental stores and even business hubs. Christmas trees are also seen to be set up in most of these places. It is often a pastime for the American people to drive or walk around neighborhoods in the Christmas evenings to see the lights displayed on and around other homes. Those with deep pockets are often found to place life-sized, illuminated Santas, reindeers and snowmen on their lawns and roofs. Many churches and private homes display illuminated Nativity Scenes commemorating the humble birth of Jesus Christ.
Christmas Eve is not an official holiday here. Hence most people have to work. However, many workplaces hold Christmas parties or celebrations, so there is a celebratory air to the day. For kids, it is a day of great joy since most schools and other educational establishments are usually closed. In the evening, most people add final touches to their home decorations. Many also set up the Christmas tree in their homes on this day. Many organizations and department stores are usually open for last minute Christmas shoppers, but may close earlier. Many people travel to visit family members or friends on Christmas Eve. Some people, especially Roman Catholics, attend a Midnight Mass service at church and participate in singing carols. Traditionally, the midnight mass starts at midnight, the point of transition from Christmas Eve to Christmas Day. Many Protestant churches also hold special services on Christmas Eve, complete with displays of beautiful manger scenes and candle-lit religious observances.
The Christmas dinner in the U.S. includes turkey or ham, potatoes and pie. Cakes are of course, a must for the occasion. The menu also consists of a lot of desserts such as the "Crostoli," a fried bread spiced with orange peel (as made in Italian-American communities) or the "Pfeffernuesse," a bread full of sweet spices (eaten by German-Americans) or the "Berlinerkranser" - a Norwegian wreath-shaped cookie. Baked breads and cookies are also part of the dinner list. At Christmas Eve gatherings adults drink eggnog, a drink made of cream, milk, sugar, beaten eggs and brandy or rum. After dinner on Christmas Eve, children go to bed early but not before hanging up their stockings on the fireplace or the end of their bed to be filled with gifts and goodies by Santa Claus. On the following morning, children wake up to look for their desired items in their stockings and also find nicely wrapped presents under their Christmas tree.
When we lose twenty pounds... we may be losing the twenty best pounds we have! We may be losing the pounds that contain our genius, our humanity, our love and honesty. ~Woody Allen
Is a chocolate muffin loving glitter ball
Once upon a time . . . a little girl tried to make a living by selling matches in the street.
It was New Year's Eve and the snowclad streets were deserted. From brightly lit windows came the tinkle of laughter and the sound of singing. People were getting ready to bring in the New Year. But the poor little matchseller sat sadly beside the fountain. Her ragged dress and worn shawl did not keep out the cold and she tried to keep her bare feet from touching the frozen ground. She hadn't sold one box of matches all day and she was frightened to go home, for her father would certainly be angry. It wouldn't be much warmer anyway, in the draughty attic that was her home. The little girl's fingers were stiff with cold. If only she could light a match! But what would her father say at such a waste! Falteringly she took out a match and lit it. What a nice warm flame! The little matchseller cupped her hand over it, and as she did so, she magically saw in its light a big brightly burning stove.
She held out her hands to the heat, but just then the match went out and the vision faded. The night seemed blacker than before and it was getting colder. A shiver ran through the little girl's thin body.
After hesitating for a long time, she struck another match on the wall, and this time, the glimmer turned the wall into a great sheet of crystal. Beyond that stood a fine table laden with food and lit by a candlestick. Holding out her arms towards the plates, the little matchseller seemed to pass through the glass, but then the match went out and the magic faded. Poor thing: in just a few seconds she had caught a glimpse of everything that life had denied her: warmth and good things to eat. Her eyes filled with tears and she lifted her gaze to the lit windows, praying that she too might know a little of such happiness.
She lit the third match and an even more wonderful thing happened. There stood a Christmas tree hung with hundreds of candles, glittering with tinsel and coloured balls. "Oh, how lovely!" exclaimed the little matchseller, holding up the match. Then, the match burned her finger and flickered out. The light from the Christmas candles rose higher and higher, then one of the lights fell, leaving a trail behind it. "Someone is dying," murmured the little girl, as she remembered her beloved Granny who used to say: "When a star falls, a heart stops beating!"
Scarcely aware of what she was doing, the little matchseller lit another match. This time, she saw her grandmother.
"Granny, stay with me!" she pleaded, as she lit one match after the other, so that her grandmother could not disappear like all the other visions. However, Granny did not vanish, but gazed smilingly at her. Then she opened her arms and the little girl hugged her crying: "Granny, take me away with you!"
A cold day dawned and a pale sun shone on the fountain and the icy road. Close by lay the lifeless body of a little girl surrounded by spent matches. "Poor little thing!" exclaimed the passersby. "She was trying to keep warm!"
But by that time, the little matchseller was far away where there is neither cold, hunger nor pain.
Last edited by archer one : 04-12-2011 at 06:37 PM.
"I want to be magic. I want to touch the heart of the world and make it smile. I want to be a friend of elves and live in a tree. Or under a hill. I want to marry a moonbeam and hear the stars sing. I don’t want to pretend at magic anymore. I want to be magic."
When we lose twenty pounds... we may be losing the twenty best pounds we have! We may be losing the pounds that contain our genius, our humanity, our love and honesty. ~Woody Allen
Is a chocolate muffin loving glitter ball
Christmas is fast approaching! I was in a shopping center the other day, and I saw they had put up paper snowflake chains. I’d totally forgotten how to make them, so I thought I would make a guide for you guys to make some too to get into the Christmas spirit, and so you can hang then up around your room!
1] Choose a piece of plain paper, colourful cardstock or wrapping paper to create snowflakes. You can even colour paper with markers, crayons or coloured pencils. Be inventive, see what colours you can come up with!
2] Crease the sheet of paper in half the long way and cut it down the middle to create two strips. Attach these strips with tape to generate an even longer strip.
3] Use a ruler and pencil to make light tic marks an inch apart across the length of the paper. Fold the strip accordion style, back and forth at every pencil mark. Crease the edges to make them easier to cut.
4] Position the stack so the folded edge of the top layer sits on the left. Use a pencil to trace half a snowflake along the other side. The design should reach the folded side as well, but leave enough of the edges in tact so that the chain doesn't fall apart.
5] Trim the chain with sharp scissors. Unfold the paper carefully. If the snowflakes need more detail, simply refold the paper and add a few more cuts.
6] Decorate the snowflake chains by making designs with thin lines of liquid glue and covering them with glitter, tiny sequins or anything else you have laying around.
7] Stick them up in your room, on your windows, anywhere!
When we lose twenty pounds... we may be losing the twenty best pounds we have! We may be losing the pounds that contain our genius, our humanity, our love and honesty. ~Woody Allen
Is a chocolate muffin loving glitter ball
I have a duplo advent calendar that I reuse every year (because I'm poor, *woes*). Even though it's not a surprise anymore, it's still fun because by the 24th I have a full scene set up and it makes me smile (it's santa feeding woodland creatures).
This year, since I couldn't find an advent calendar I liked, they are a bit sparse in the US, I settled on a giant box of Whitman's. I need to take a picture and post it because it can't even be called large, it is comically giant. I laughed for a full two minutes when I found it in the grocery store. :D
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