Christmas Time, Too Much Wine

I am Christmas toxic. Utterly stuffed with meat, dairy, sugar and gluten.

Turkey
There have been turkey curries, turkey wraps, turkey pitta pockets, turkey sandwiches. All delicious, and as I haven't eaten turkey for 5 years, a novelty.

Chocolate
There have been two chocolate oranges, each before noon. The only fruit I’ve eaten was with nut, coated in chocolate and labelled Dairy Milk. Maltezers, Raffello, Lindt, Ferrero Rocher of course. Usually I'm a one square of 80% cocoa girl. Not this Christmas. Those ones are languishing in the back of the larder.

Bread and Cheese
So much bread and cheese, gooey gorgonzola with toasted sour dough and a beautiful antique glass full of port, a whole baked camembert dribbled in honey with sage, an unctuous taste temptation devoured in one sitting with crispy baguette and a nice Sablet from the Rhone.

Coca-cola cooked ham, pickled onions, chutneys and pork pies. Crisps, many crisps. Pavlovas and chocolate Yule logs - all delightful.

Bar Christmas dinner (roast turkey, spouts and roast potatoes cooked in goose fat, red cabbage and apple, bread sauce), the only vegetables I've eaten were fried in butter and presented as bubble and squeak. I resorted to juicing the carrots lining the vegetable drawer yesterday with a thumb of ginger but I couldn't feel any semblance of detoxification. To be fair, I did follow it with a tumbler full of Baileys.

I’ve even been drinking coca-cola which would never normally pass my lips. My waistline has seriously expanded, my chin has erupted and my bones ache when I get out of bed in the morning. All this and yet I persist and I’m enjoying it. Is this masochism by food?

Of course I have plans to change everything back to goodness in 2020. Go plant-based, practice yoga, start swimming, exercise some self-care, all the usual malarkey.

I am worried. I can feel a small lump on the right side of my throat. Having had my thyroid removed in 2017 I'm still going for check ups. Why would there be a lump there? Where would it manifest from? Could it be a rogue lymph node. How does the disease even get in your lymph nodes. Ironically, I know drinking alcohol and eating sugar, stressing out and not taking any me-time are exactly the opposite of what I should be doing.

I had a mini epiphany yesterday while taking the time to ask myself why I felt a certain way when people said untoward things to me. It was that ‘I deserve to be here too’. I hope it's not too late.

And seriously woman, get a hold of yourself, there are people starving out there, as well as seahorses holding onto cotton buds in our polluted oceans.

Photographer Justin Hofman's image of a seahorse swimming with a discarded cotton swab illustrates the issues of pollution in our oceans. ... Seahorses ride the ocean currents by grasping floating objects with their tails.

Christmas Baubles 2019

Well it wouldn’t be a W1mum Christmas without posting my annual bauble finds.

I have my eye on this beauty from the RHS (that’s the Royal Horticultural Society) darling.
A greenhouse for the tree. Love it.

RHS Greehouse Decoration £13.00

Erbie, however has made his choice for this year. A blue glass hammerhead shark wearing a Santa hat. I cannot argue, it is his choice, who knows what goes on in a child’s head! From Paperchase where tree decs range from turtles to fortune cookies, so just had to share a couple of others which we might get.

Hammerhead Shark Tree Decoration - Paperchase - £8 

Game controller tree decoration - Paperchase

Paperchase

Are you feeling Christmassy yet?

I might crack open the Baileys later...

Bathtime Blues and London Zoo

I promised myself I would write this year – so write, write, write I will. 

I’ve just got out of an evening bath after a chilly day at London Zoo with Erbie and friends. 

Bored gorillas, sleeping tigers, lions nowhere to be seen, the aquarium half closed and looking tired and old - much like me. Lovely llamas, a donkey, camels, macaws, the highlight was a beautiful troupe of squirrel monkeys, jumping and playing with one another, grooming, climbing and holding hands, miniature evolutionary bits of ourselves distilled in time. 

The kids asked them questions and watched in anticipation to see whether they nod or shake their tiny heads. 

‘Are you adorable?’

A ripple of awed laughter bubbles from the children as the monkey nods emphatically behind the glass.

The day ends with the obligatory exit through the gift shop, herding the children past shelves crammed with animal shaped pens, keychains and cuddly toys ranging from a lifelike Emperor penguin with chick to attachable tails. 

Cuddly Emperor penguin with chick - £30.00 London Zoo Shop

Attachable Giraffe Tail - £5 London Zoo Shop

Attachable Lion Tail - £5 London Zoo Shop

Attachable Tiger Tail - £5 London Zoo Shop

From my bath I can hear my boys playing zombies with nerf guns, fighting with the lights off. I can hear screeches of laughter and ‘I got you, I got you’.

Meanwhile I lay here thinking what if this was it. 

What if my life was nearly over. What would I recall as the most defining moments from zero to 50. It can’t all be tragedy. In fact, I used to have a pretty positive mindset. I used to proudly say I could not afford the luxury of a negative thought.

Maybe I’m just hungover in the aftermath of Christmas. I feel fear, fear of dying, not the joy of living. I keep feeling imaginary or real lumps in my neck, knotty lymph nodes that I try and talk myself out of believing are the cancer returning. 

Geez get a grip woman. They do say most tube jumpers occur around February, and I'm not talking about chunky knits here, rather the poor souls who leap to their deaths under oncoming trains, leaving the splatter crew to clear up and find their shoes afterwards. 

The shoes always come off. 

I guess the general psyche of humans is brought lower with the light levels in Winter, hence the pagan festival that involves lighting up a tree, or am I confusing pagans with Moonins. 

Presents, lights and a feast with family just after the shortest day on 21st December to chide us through the coldest months, magical. 

Just keep something wonderful in mind to look forward to when the days get longer. Or comfort yourself with ridiculously cute things like this cuddly Emperor Penguin chick from the London Zoo Shop. 

Cuddly Emperor Penguin Chick - London Zoo Shop £8.00

A Selection of Christmas Baubles - 2018

Every year since his birth, I have bought a Christmas tree decoration with Erbie. This year we went to Liberty in London’s west end to get Big Ben (as the real one is currently shrouded for refurbishment).

Big Ben Glass Tree Decoration - Liberty £6.95

Regent Street Tree Decoration Liberty £7.95

Peace Hand Decoration Liberty £24.95

All of the big London department stores such as Harrods and Selfridges have a section dedicated to Christmas.

Landrover Glass Decoration Harrods  £25.00

Soft boiled egg glass tree decoration Harrods £18.00

Mexican Skull Christmas Decoration £26.00 Harrods

Selfridges is rocking Christmas this year with glass decorations of his purple highness, Prince and David Bowie for your tree plus stars and thunderbolts a plenty. 

Prince - Glass Tree Ornament Selfridges £26.00

Thunderbolt Tree Decoration Selfridges £13.00

Sadly Selfridges David Bowie was sold out before Halloween, I found one online at Trouva, if you’re quick you may still be able to get your hands on him.

David Bowie Glass Tree Decoration 

Trouva:  £14.99

I also love museum and gallery shops in London for Christmas baubles, such as the British Museum, Tate Britain and the Natural History museum:

Wedgewood China Angel Tree Ornament - The British Museum £25.00

Frida bauble £15.00 The Tate Shop

Charles Darwin embroidered tree decoration £18.00 The Natural History Museum Shop

The Royal Palaces also have great shops for gifts and decorations which you can also find online - click on the links in the captions for each one How about the infamous white tower complete with raven or you could award your tree with the order of the Garter. The order of the Garter is the oldest and most prestigious order to receive, first established in 1348.

The White Tower embroidered decoration - Tower of London £10.99

Order of The Garter Embroidered Tree Decoration Royal Palaces Shop £12.99

How about miniature replicas of Kew’s famous Victorian glasshouses to adorn your tree.

The Palm House at Kew Glass Decoration £7.50

The Temperate House at Kew Glass Decoration £7.50

This is a very small selection of what is on offer, from avocados, glass bees, bananas and rainbows to reindeer, you can choose any theme for Christmas this year.

Star Wars Christmas Advent Calendar 2018

I know, I know, it's too early to think about Christmas, we have Halloween and Fireworks before then. It's just Smyths Toystore have a rather good offer on the Star Wars Advent calendar this half term, (coupled with free delivery on Lego products over £15) which means you can pick up this advent for under £20 without going anywhere. Lazy - moi? Bargain - oui!

© Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar 2018 with 24 gifts to build.

© Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar 2018

...and no I'm not on commission or affiliated with Smyths or Lego (I wish) at all.

The baubles have gone on.

Original vintage, a family heirloom!

Handmade B a present from San Franciso

The birds

Nutcracker soldier

My black angels from Africa

We have reopened communications with The Belle Mere and Erbie has named her ‘Grandpa’.

Oh Christmas tree.

Having started off with 2 baubles, one red and one blue, gifts from Christmas past one saying ‘Baubles to Christmas’ and the other ‘Merry Whatever’, I was a bit worried our Christmas tree might look a little bare this year. I usually have a theme, for example, one year was shells and bells, one year – minatures, alcoholic ones, that was fun, if a little pricey but not really suitable now we are parents. Twin mum had a box of old decorations that were going to whomsoever wanted them from which I rescued the gold baubles. I found some hand beaded black angels in an art gallery up the road for next to nothing and I had some odd birds, make of that what you will. 

The GR was unsure of my black angels (made by South African tribeswomen) but I liked them. I filled in the gaps with fondant stars, (roll out shop bought Royal icing then press out star shapes with a cutter and dry out in a very low oven for a couple of hours and paint with melted white chocolate). When I started to put a doilly around the base The GR got very agitated but when I covered most of it up with an image of Maurice Sendaks’ Wild Things he was happy. Erbie too, he points at the tree and says ‘star’ and goes ‘boum boum boum ’ at the Wild Things.