One more sleep

Only one more sleep to the Big Day! It's also my first day of Christmas leave and I'm not back until 5 January - hurrah! I'm looking forward to the rest but also the chance to get out into the daylight. December has so far been unremittingly grey and I'm hoping for some blue skies and sunshine.

On Sunday we went to the carol service at our local church. The photo above was a display on one of the window sills and I thought it was beautifully done. The street lights were particularly effective.

I love this particular carol service as it's conducted completely by candlelight - so atmospheric.

The decorations were unpacked a couple of weeks ago: all our old favourites like this teddy. It's a musical box which plays 'Have yourself a merry little Christmas'.

One of Chickpea's favourites is this row of Father Christmases which I made several years ago at my quilt group.

Another Father Christmas sits outside the gingerbread house we decorated at the weekend. It's a kit which was given to us as a present. All the gingerbread pieces and icing were included so all you have to do is assemble it. As you can see, the icing gave us a bit of trouble! It was on the runny side and all the sweets were sliding off as I was trying to take this photo! We were still happy with it though and it was a lot of fun to do.

I've also made a start on designs for the mug hug workshop I'm running with my quilt group in February. I need to give them a list of what they'll need at our January meeting so the pressure is on! This was a prototype just to test out ideas for the fastening - elastic and buttons are definitely the way to go as ribbons were just too fiddly to tie.

This morning I've been out to buy pastries for Christmas breakfast and have been playing around with tinsel and clementines to make a table decoration - a recent tradition. I've had the snowflakes for several years and the tinsel was a bargain 50p purchase this morning. There are tiny lights hidden in there too.

And that only leaves me to wish you all a very merry Christmas.

Thank you all so much for visiting this year and for all your support and comments. If I don't pop back before then, see you all in the New Year! xxx