'tis the season

I am starting to get very excited about the Christmas season, almost as much as girl monkey. Ever since she was a toddler she's been mad about Christmas. For a number of years she was asking from March onwards when we would put up the tree and unpack all the baubles. We've got a big box with all the decorations in it and it is just a treasure chest for her. I have been collecting decorations since I was little, some are from the fifties, others handmade from the seventies and every year I add some lovely little trinkets. So far this year I bought a teeny weeny little pig (I LOVE pigs!), little wooden reindeer and a teeny weeny Pinocchio from our trip to Italy. 

One of the bags of decorations that I kept for about 16 years ended up in the bin a few years ago. This needs some explaining. When I had my own little place when I was about 19, I bought my first little real tree and as I didn't have a lot of money left I got some little decorations and I bought a bag of marshmallow wreaths. These are very popular in Holland and look lovely in the tree with a nice red ribbon. I had put these up a couple of times but then they ended up in a box at my parents. Years later when I was pregnant my dad came over with a lot of stuff, including the box of Christmas decorations. So when we moved up North we got a really big tree and I was thrilled to put all the decorations in it. Girl monkey was just two and loved it all, including the marshmallow wreaths! How did she know they were once edible I do not know as she had not ever seen anything like it. Anyway two little wreaths and many dirty sheets later, they all ended up in the bin. I felt awful! She has never touched anything in the tree since but still adores Christmas.

I was really getting into the spirit today as I had to make some more gingerbread people for a friend (aren't they cute?)....

... and some doves and toadstools for the tree. 

The monkeys chose lovely biscuit stamps this afternoon on our way back through the village. They can't wait to bake. 

And then girl monkey asked me to take this picture to show EVERYONE, bless her. It is a lovely tree stump though, quite fancy one in our garden.

Not sure if I'll be blogging in the next few days as we've got to work hard to get our stock ready for the weekend! It's going to be bags galore again.