665

Trim up 2kgs of delicious strawbs. Weigh the trimmed fruit - 1.5kg.

Put in a bowl and cover with 550g of sugar if you're like us and don't like your jam too sweet and the juice of one lemon.

Leave for at least 5 hours and you will have the most delicious juicy bowl of strawbs shedding their juice. I was longing for a dacquirie!

Cook in a pan for a minimum of 15 mins, then check testing on plate for a nice set.

Jar and eat.

Yum.

664

A very Merry Christmas to friends near and far, both those I know well and those I haven't met yet.

Travel safe over the festive season.

663

The stockings are already laid out on the beds and the Pommery is chilling for the grown ups. We always have speccie drinks and snacks, listen to some festive tunes, perhaps watch a festive show, read the Night before Christmas, perhaps take a walk to look at the Christmas lights near by.

I'm particularly pleased that this year I've already wrapped all our gifts. Normally I'm wrapping until all hours on Christmas Eve, which is part of the excitement for the first hour, then your back starts aching!

Dad's taken the girls for a swim. I think the little one is struggling with the anticipation a little. Some of us take it as excitement, I think she finds it a little overwhelming, all the build up. A little physical exhaustion should help to distract.

Merry Christmas to you all but particularly to Bec, who will receive my scraps in the new year! Thank you Bec - email me your address and I'll have them to you Jan!

662

Will you think me awful if I offer you my scraps?

I've been distracted again today. I have a lot to do to ready myself for our Christmas hosting this year, so decided to clean out the laundry, reorganise all my fabric, clean everything, put stuff in the shed etc. Don't your guests inspect your laundry cupboards when they come for dinner? I know, of all the things to waste an hour (or more on)!

So, I cleared out a lot of fabric and as a result have about a kilo of pieces ranging from fat quarters, little snippets to bigger pieces, perhaps half a metre. I won't lie and say that it's all imported, because it's not. Aside from a small piece of netting and some silky purple stuff, it's all cotton.

In case more than one of you gets excited at the idea of MORE fabric, I'll pick a number at random within the next few days if more than one of you is interested. I'm happy to post within Australia, although realistically it won't be until the new year.

Thank you - the fabric has found a new home.

661

Every year, when we decorate our Christmas tree, I wish for a tree with the decorations distributed absolutely evenly, alternating all the way round. I imagine a tree where everything matches everything else and there is perhaps even a theme. My reality is a tree adorned with a mish mash of ornaments, some handmade recently, some from my childhood and many from school and kinder. The cat is obsessed with the tree so every few days, after beating him off it numerous times, I have to strain under the couches looking for where all the decorations have gone.

Whilst not very photoworthy, it is our tree and I still get a thrill turning on the lights each night, like a child again. I'm not even sure we had lights when I was young, I must ask my parents.

So again this year I will set aside my House and Garden tree aspirations but have succeeded on another front - the co-ordination of my present wrapping. I love how they look and really get excited about everything looking exactly the same - why is that I wonder?

I also have a small collection of santas I've bought at various times. This guy is my favourite. He's Norwegian, bought when we were in Oslo many years ago now, well at least 8 ago. The girls and Geoff both think he's a bit, well, ugly, whereas I find him utterly charming.

660

Is it just me or do the days feel so much longer during the holidays? I love not having the school to and fros to do. I don't mind them when I'm doing them, but when I'm not I realise how much I enjoy not!

I'm not getting a heck of a lot done. We're hosting my in-law side this year, so 15 at our very small place. Of course we've just finished having our small back area landscaped, but given the weather of late I suspect we'll be squeezed into the lounge dining. It will be so squeezed that I can't even allow myself to yet consider HOW we'll manage it. The plan was to eat outside, with tea lanterns hanging all around our lovely new yard, jam jars with candles on the tables, a handmade linen runner to run down the trestles, flowers everywhere. I'm stuck on that image, think I'd best get over it.

On the holidays I don't mind the mess of baking anywhere near as much. I also don't mind when we start baking at 4:30 in the afternoon. I love school holidays.

659

Another distraction, yesterday not today, was next year's calendar. I do have trouble finding a calendar that ticks my boxes. The ones with particularly gorgeous prints generally don't have boxed dates and the ones with boxed dates aren't always visually appealing.

So, Kikki K, a trip to Officeworks for prints of some favourite snaps and bring on 2011.