Christmas 2011

We have spent the first half of the Christmas holidays with my side of the family. There has been much baking, eating, Articulate, laughter, jigsaw-puzzling, relaxing and running.

While relaxing has been a significant feature in our festivities, I have a husband who is always happy to go for a run, or play some early morning tennis (and get beaten by his wife), and so hopefully we have kept an equilibrium in our weight over Christmas, in spite of the constant stream of delicious food that has made its way into our bellies!

For breakfast on Christmas morning, we baked orange pull apart bread, though reduced the sugar content by not adding the icing. We prepared the dough on Christmas Eve, then left it in a cool place to rise overnight, then popped it in the oven on Christmas morning. 

Pre-baking: Thankfully I had my little brother on hand to wisely advise me that I was overfilling my bread tin at risk of the bread ballooning and overflowing, so we split it between two tins.

 Post baking :: a mountainous range of spikey bread. Yum.

After breakfast, we went to Church for the Christmas celebration, then headed home for Christmas lunch.

Before lunch, we skyped my big brother who lives in Madrid & wasn't able to come back for Christmas this year.

 There was a steady stream of hot drinks to keep our bellies warm

Our family has always waited until after lunch to open gifts. Once presents had been shared, we set about creating the set of paper creatures that John's Mum had given him.

And here's one of the completed creatures, which made its way to the top of the Christmas tree!

So, we're halfway through the Christmas break, and are now in London where we will spend time with John's family and some of our friends, and celebrate the New Year. I'm already looking forward to the baking adventures that 2012 will bring, with the new recipe books I've been given for Christmas. I have plans for baking a lot more bread from scratch, and biscuits instead of as well as cookies.