MEMORIES ARE MADE OF THIS

One of the things I love most about Christmas is sharing all the lovely preserves we have been fortunate enough to produce with our friends and neighbours. With the kitchen filling up daily with more good things it is fun when people call in to sample the latest batch of cookies of try a slice of cake. I know of no better way of getting the feel good factor than to watch the faces of our friends,the postmen, delivery drivers and the lovely people who take care of us through out the year when they collect their Christmas goodies .


A warm kitchen smelling wonderfully of good things cooking is an attractive place and it does not have to be smart,sophisticated or even particularly tidy. A cosy kitchen is a magnet for young and old alike and at this time of year ours is very popular indeed.

I love Christmas in spite of the fact that I am not a Christian. I love the busyness and bustle, the sparkle and glitter,the shear downright gaudiness of it all appeals to the child within.

Christmas can all to easily become a chore,and with so much extra work to do,especially for working mums it can all seem too much.

Try to remember r that you are not super human, forget house work for a few days and concentrate on family fun. If every one has their own allotted tasks towards making Christmas the chores can become fun and the excitement of what is to come is real, rather than the product of television adverts. I suppose what I am trying to say is make Christmas your own, in years to come your children won't remember if the house was tidy on Christmas day, they may not even remember the gifts they were given,my own son remembers little of this

What he does remember is the love which surrounded him, the games we played together,and the magic that a loving family can make for each other and for those around them.

A perfect Christmas is the part which lives in the memory and becomes more dear year on year, so if the turkey doesn’t defrost in time or the tree falls over, you forgot to buy any sprouts or your house looks more like Widow Twanky's Laundry than a fairy tale palace soar above it,give the person nearest to you a hug and store it away as a memory to be laughed about in years to come.

I once set the chimney ablaze on Christmas day,my neighbour called the Fire Brigade and then rushed in to our living room with a fire extinguisher. He put out the fire so well that it refused to light again for days,covered my Grandfather in foam,scared the life out of the cat and blew our Christmas tree in to a tangled heap of dripping tinsel and shattered glass.

Sounds like a disaster ,and yet within a couple of hours we were eating our Christmas lunch and laughing until our sides ached. We still laugh about it every year. It was the horrified look on our neighbours face when he realised the havoc he had created which caused all the mirth.

Lord knows what I've been waffling on about, it's been one of those days.