Christmas Decorations at Last

After a relatively lazy day yesterday recharging my batteries, as Penny from The Hen House so kindly put it, today I sprang into action and started work cleaning up the living room and 2nd reception room so that I could get the decorations out and up.  It was pretty filthy, not because I'm a total slob, but because since I last deep cleaned a month ago we had had a wood burner fitted and the chimneys swept and there was a layer of ash/soot covering everything in the room.

It took the almost the full day to give it another good old clean, but once it was done I was able to get the tree up and a few decorations out to make it feel a bit more Christmassy.  I still need to decorate the tree, but I figure that's the easy bit and I can do that whilst watching Strictly tonight. 

With the help of Little Bird and OH we managed to get into the last few nooks and crannies, get rid of any cobwebs, take the glass globe lampshades down and clean them and I also cleaned the inside of the windows too.  It felt so good to get it done.

Our new little friend went up in the doorway to guide us home. 

He's quite sweet.  And our dearest old friend came out to visit us once more. 

Little Bird and I made him at an art group when she was a toddler, from modrock and scrunched up newspaper with twigs for horns.  I just love him.  I think I might do a less is more theme this year and keep it quite simple.  Just a few old favourites.  Less to take down in the New Year.  There's still quite a bit to do but at least I've made a good start.

Later I made my first batch of mince tarts with snowflake tops.  Some got a rather heavier dusting of 'snow' than others.