the year ends devoid of delicious beauty

gold, frankincense and mur

Getting presents is lovely but so too is giving them. Especially when you know the recipient will really like them (one hopes)... What's that good feeling called? Not necessarily because you're making somebody else happy but more how you're making yourself happy in the knowing that you've done a good thing by making that other person happy. Follow? Well now if I were a learned sort of person I might start discussing the concept of good will, refer to Kant and ask some questions on morality in order to develop my argument. Unfortunately I'm more pleb than I am philosopher so instead I'll merely call on the old fail-safe mention of "the episode of Friends where..." Phoebe tries to prove to Joey that there is such a thing as a selfless act. She lets a bee sting her so the bee can look cool in front of his bee friends then donates money to a fundraising drive on television for an organisation she really dislikes. Alas in killing the bee and getting Joey attention on camera she ruins her attempted altruism, proving that at the end of the day benevolence is never entirely disinterested.

fit for a king

With gingerbread on the brain we got an idea (from goodness knows where) to build a gingerbread house. No not a house... a CASTLE yes from small acorns big oaks grow and our humble vision for an edible house saw us with an octagonal chateau complete with towers, turrets, drawbridge and a rooftop adorned with an army of angels.

We were all hands on deck in the prepping and baking and making and decorating.

A group effort of imaginations run wild let to an intriguing yet beautiful aesthetic

And the final result? A sweet, sweet chateau which stood proud as a work of art for almost an entire day before being brutally demolished and gobbled down by our savage selves...

the anthropomorphic biscuit

Hurrah for finding secretly stashed bottles of vodka in the cupboard and for spontaneous nights out. And for friends who take their eyebrow penciling down a notch to the upper lip Le jeune homme francais danced his sweaty socks off and led the party in style. Dragging us into the hangover of the following noon wherein our pre-Christmas crackings had us crying out cravings of sugar and we commenced the annual Gingerbread bake.

Our comrade-in-arms found himself as inspiration for the decoration of our delicious cookie men ooh la la si mignon! I had my Crayolas near to hand and drew up a few cards for emergency snail mailing after having found out the shocking fact that the last date for international posting passed some time ago...

serving Tom Thumb

Eat, drink and be merry. The simple secret to a happy life (and to think of what GPs get paid to pen prescriptions in the attempt of alleviating patient's ails...)

Well as I'm a wise woman I adhere to these three small rules and my days are wonderful things because of it. Thus having been very merry yesterday with my egocentric purchases I couldn't wait to carry on the contented feeling and headed to the kitchen to put my brand new mini muffin tin to use. I think it really helped that it was one of the first days in absolutely ages that wasn't grey and dreary and clouded by a depressing drizzle but my mood was fantabulous and made even more so when mother found me bumbling away in a big sloppy mess of icing as I was trying to funnel icing from home-made parchment paper cones and failing rather superbly. The expected scorn never fell from her lips but instead she revealed a secret so surprising - she had, in the cupboard, granny's old icing piper! Trickier to control than you would think, I squeezed out blobs upon coils of unappealing icing before finally managing to get a few that didn't look too terribly like poo. And then had myself a well-deserved Sophie Dahl-esque moment of Mmmming..... Mmm..........

in for a penny

I'm a self-confessed magpie when it comes to charity shop shopping (or "thrifting" as the cool kids say) because my impulsive consumer spending traits coupled with my lifelong belief that one man's trash is another man's treasure renders me vulnerable to the potential wonders of the find at the end of the hunt. What then could that mean if I pay my first ever visit to TK Maxx in search of Christmas presents? Well, it meant handing over money for mini bun tins and a big box of postcards. For myself. Forget family and friends, I saw, I wanted and I bought. Honestly though, who couldn't be excited by these beautiful books? Even if only their covers. And did you know the original publishings were colour coded? Like the purple-and-white stripe was for essays or belle-lettres, and orange-and-white were general fiction. Penguin classics paperbacks of today are far from my favourite, but oh, the hardcover classics are an altogether different story. Elated by my selfish buy I then began imagining if I was a Penguin book come to life as a human for the Spring how I would dress myself... Cool aesthetic, clear cut simple designs, classic block colours and the intermittent ornamental pattern? Check check checkitty check.

Jaeger, Dries Van Noten, Dries Van Noten, Prada. SS2012 RTW.

you took the words right out of my mouth

The homecomings of the holiday season are what makes the yuletide special. The first of the friends to arrive home was Elspeth, returning from dance college in England and being as excited as I was I made haste to call and say hello. Where a double surprise awaited... a parcel had arrived for our Stitch and Bitch group all the way from South Korea! Orla was thinking of us one and all in boxing up a furry hats and felt crafts and it sent us falalalala-ing in cute cosy mirth

An evening time reunion evolved into a brandy-fuelled game of scrabble and a musical education courtesy of LPs spinning on the record player which taught us how the blues led to Meatloaf and also how scoring a mega triple whammy word score isn't enough to beat your consecutively high point winning opponents if your sole remaining tile sports a Q.

You took the words right out of my mouth, it must have been when you were kissing me

a child was born

Ye Olde Christmas spirit of selection boxes, day-long games of monopoly, Santa-filled stockings and tins of roses loses it's charm as the years go by and the festive season becomes yet another excuse for a great big drinking session. This year Donal had the idea to try and re-ignite some of the wonder of the holidays for us wandering in the abyss of our twenties by putting on a Nativity Play. There was only one female role, that of the Holy Virgin Mary, and I was surely not up to filling this part so instead I volunteered my styling skills and was appointed official wardrobe mistress. Three crowns for the kings were made with my new favourite tool - the stapler. A missing bottle of PVA glue led to my discovering the versatility of stationary devices and came in handy for last-minute panic over the Angel Gabriel's robes. It was a classic primary school style costume - cutting a hole in a net curtain and attaching a length of tinsel; easy peasy.

I wish I could convey the hilarity of the night, from the textbook Vatican-approved script to the long. awkward. pauses. It just worked a wonder.

the puppet who spoke

When one stack of cereal boxes, two pritt sticks, three lots of shiny paper, four scissors and five friends gather to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas and make decorations to put Kirstie Allsopp to shame, these are the results:
Using a borrowed camera that I hadn't an idiot's idea how to use, I have photos everyone's art. And although it wasn't a competition I think a unanimous winner's prize was inadvertently awarded to Jack and his massive efforts. He worked away in his corner with hardly a peep out of him all evening, until he unveiled his work with a creepy cry of "hoe hoe hoe I'm coming down your chimney" from his cardboard construction
And because thrifty is nifty and wasting not is wanting not (remember we are in a recession here) I used leftovers to make some cards to send to friends in the snail mail.