Having a cosy Christmas time

We've had a joyful season surrounded by family and friends and I hope you have all had a wonderful time too.  Christmas Morning Mass was a beautifully chaotic affair and led almost totally by the children.  All three churches in the Parish come together at both Easter and Christmas and it's always lovely to see the children taking full part in the proceedings.  George delivered both the first and second readings, Alice read part of the bidding prayers, Rebecca sang the responsorial psalm and Lucy and Jenny read the Gospel.  Ayana and the girls also altar served ably lead by Joseph.  They were all fantastic and didn't seem in the least bit fazed by a congregation in the hundreds!

We only open stockings before church, so once the dinner (turkey wellington) was safely in the oven, we settled down to open the rest of our presents.  Mr Larkin and the children gave me a new hair dryer to replace the one I've had since school, as it is now inclined to cut out mid-use.  Hopefully this new one will also deliver thirty years of service!  Darling Mr Larkin also presented me with a beautiful poem fresh from his pen.

Alice was very pleased with a new school bag and complete box set of the 'Heroes of Olympus' books by Rick Riordan.  George had a couple of new games, a set of headphones and a seven book set of the 'Game of Thrones'. Mr Larkin was delighted with a Charles Tyrwhitt shirt and some new hi-vis cycling tops.

We spent the rest of the day fairly quietly as we were saving ourselves for 'Boxing Day'.  This is very much a part of a traditional English Christmas and many people chose to spend it with close friends or family.  We dragged some trestle tables out of the garage and had a full sit-down Christmas dinner with ourselves and three other families.  It was a glorious day and we built up an appetite for lunch with a walk around a local lake and ancient woodland known as 'The Scrogs'.

I was stitching right up until Christmas Eve and this year's theme was tea cosies.  The first one was for Alice's godmother who is also one of her teachers and she kindly gives up at least one lunchtime a week to teach Alice and a friend the flute.

  

As you can see I made it from a beautiful piece of purple tweed and I gave the teacup design a festive tweak with the addition of a snowflake. The back featured a personalised Christmas label.

The script was formed using free-motion machine embroidery and the black stitching used to highlight the applique pieces was applied in the same manner.  The cozy is very dinky and the perfect size to cover a pot of tea for one.  Just the thing at the end of a long day's teaching!

The next two were somewhat larger and should fit a family sized teapot.  They also had little personalised labels on the back but as the light was fading on Christmas Eve by the time I finished I didn't get any decent pictures.

 Happy Christmas!