Village Cryptid: December - This One Got Away From Me a Bit.

It is that time of year again, time for pressure, stress, and squabbling. I’ve realised that a lot of the pressure I feel at Christmas/Yule/whatever you want to call it is self-inflicted. I want to make all the things and have everything be magnificent and bask in the glow of a feat pulled off successfully. But I have to rein myself in, standing in the kitchen crying because my back hurts and the mince pies have boiled over and there isn’t room to put everything and cooling racks and used pans are having to sit on the floor is not it. I spent the last couple of years buying all the mince pies and desserts and frivolities to give myself a break but this year I’m ready to start making some things again. (Man, this is not what I was planning to write, this stream of consciousness typing is really taking a turn).

Full moon, 4th December

To spare myself some stress I’m limiting what I make and I’m trying to get some stuff done in advance and stashed in the freezer. Sprouts are blanched and frozen and today I have made the bread sauce and stashed it (in a stroke of genius I have split it into two containers because I always make too much and this means I won’t end up binning half). I plan to make the mince pie pastry next week so that I can just defrost, roll and bake instead of spending a whole afternoon at it. I know what I’m making for the big pud (a pavlova, I cannot stand Christmas pudding, had to suffer it every year as a kid with some godawful white instant brandy sauce stuff - bork), and I know where the spare egg yolks are going. I’ve already made the mincemeat for the pies and I’m going to make Nigella’s white chocolate, cranberry and pecan cookies and also my pimped up version of a bara brith (Welsh fruit tea loaf) and that’s it. Having to deal with people at this time of year is stressful enough without making yourself go overboard in the kitchen.

Clockwise from top left: Merry Murdle book, Yuletide book, Yuletide Hauntings advent calendar, Bigfoot colouring advent calendar.

To lighten up a little (and get back on track) I’m spending a bit of time every day with a bunch of little activities. I bought myself a new advent calendar (just with pictures inside, do not get me started on those expensive ones full of stuff), it’s from Talking Trees and every day has details of a festive haunting, day one had a headless horseman so that was a cracking start to the month. From the same people I have a book called Yule: A Journey Through the Days of December and every day has an old custom that would have been done at this time of year. It’s been really interesting. I also have Moose Alain’s annual advent colouring calendar; it was aardvarks last year and bigfoot for this year. It’s also a free download. Murdle is new to me but I had a go on the website and liked it so got myself the festive book to do a kind of advent puzzle.

Day 1

Day 6 I guess

I’ve been struggling to find unwaxed oranges anywhere and after asking on a Ravelry forum was recommended Crowd Farming which is a company bringing together produce growers in Europe to sell their products directly to customers. Fruit is seasonal, organic and picked pretty much to order (it’s weather dependent) then packed and sent out. It seemed worth a go and so I ordered a box of oranges from a grower in Spain. They came really quickly and they are fantastic. The smell in my kitchen is amazing and they are so good. Every time I eat an orange, I get the zester out before I peel it and grate it into a silicon muffin cup and pop it into the freezer. Once it’s frozen I peel off the little disc of zest and put it in a wee tub so I’ve zest to add to whatever I want (everything). I’ve ordered a box of clementines for Christmas, and only just in time for the last harvest of the season, I’d have been gutted if I’d missed it.

I wish this was scratch and sniff.

Orange and poppy seed cake, a recipe from a 90s Good Housekeeping book which I absolutely only used as a guide and Nigella's breakfast bars (link in last post) with added orange zest.

I bought another couple of old Rowan books to increase the choice of patterns for my year of Rowan project. The Winter Gifts book has a lot of smaller things like socks and mitts in it so it’s not all slogging through big jumpers and Cocoon Collection is stuffed with some lovely jumpers and cardies, a banger on every page just about. When I’m buying used knitting books I always look them up on Ravelry to see what the patterns are like before I order them. Saves a lot of disappointment that way. In my last post I said I would expand on the Rowan project a bit more and I will do that in the weird period between Christmas day and the end of December when no one knows what day it is (I am also planning another best books of the year post for the 31^st which is how I kicked off this iteration of my blog).

New old books.

I also treated myself to a little yarn in Rowan’s black/cyber sale and also another book because 60% off is not to be sniffed at.

Rowan sock yarn in ruby, citrine and emerald, Pebble Island book in the background.

I’ll end with a mini photo dump because this is getting hella long now and people got things to do. I hope your festive plans are working out and however/whatever you celebrate have a good time and stay safe. If you do not participate then I hope you’re not driven mad by everyone else being giddy. Lastly, if your family are a set of tossers then I feel you, just try your best and it’ll soon be over.