More festivities

Evening all

I am sure by now everyone has their Christmas decorations up. Well, we are not allowed ours up as Andy thinks it might be bad luck? (Last year we were meant to go away but the plane got snowed on– we bought a little Christmas tree for the weeks before we went away- so it makes sense that if we don’t get one then we won’t have to stay and use it, right?).

But it does not mean I cannot be festive! The Christmas Fayre at school today was just lovely- (I even wore my Old Navy happy holidays top!)

Happy Holidays 2008!

and really put me in even more of a festive mood. Pumpkin gingerbread pancakes were a good festive breakfast too.

They never look good in my photos but trust me it was all about the taste!

On the way home I popped to Starbucks (2 actually!) but not for a chai latte (didn’t think it would be good pre-run fuel)-  in their 2 days of Christmas offers mugs were half price. I saw a lovely one a while back so decided to hunt it down. I could not resist a cinnamon roll either!

We shared one this afternoon with some Teapigs chai. Mmmmm.

I got home at about 1pm, and got ready for my run. I went out and did 8.5ish miles (my regular route)- I did consider 10 but I was so hungry (and cold- the wind was cold) so headed home. It was about 3 by the time I got home and I was starving! Not surprised seeing as my breakfast was at about 9am!

I had a go at a vegan Christmas cake this afternoon- from Vegetarian magazine although I made a few changes.

It will look better once it is covered in marzipan 🙂 Tomorrow I am going on a Christmas cupcake decorating course so I am hoping to have some good ideas for how to decorate the cakes. Other than that I have been relaxing- I had a busy week and somehow did 4 runs (Saturday- 4, Sunday- 8, Monday-5, Wednesday 4) plus aerobics and pump, and normally I would have had another rest day. I was meant to be going out to dinner after work yesterday, but I left work late (super busy) and had such an awful headache- my eyes were hurting as I was driving home looking at all the headlights, so I skipped that in favour of an evening on the sofa!

I might even write our Christmas cards later.

Are your decorations up yet?

Are you after anything in the Starbucks sale? And also, does anyone have one of the Starbucks cards? They seem really good- surely there must be drawbacks??

My love for all things gingerbread

Evening all

I have been busy on a few baking projects over the last few days. On Saturday it is the Christmas Fayre at school and the PTA had a plea for baked goods to sell. It is a shame I have been so busy with work otherwise I would have made more (I would have loved a day off just to bake for it!), but I am pleased with what I managed to make. We were not allowed to have nuts in them, (so no mini Christmas cakes or anything) so I went for a gingerbread theme.

Yesterday I made some gingerbread cookies.

Little gingerbread men:

And some hearts and stars:

I got some writing icing from Sainsbury’s and had fun drawing on them, but the thing is it is quite sticky- a bit worried it is all going to peel off as I have currently wrapped them in clingfilm.

Today I made some gingerbread cupcakes from the new Hummingbird book.

Then I used my new sugarflair colours to make coloured icing and cut out little gingerbread men;

Which went on top of the cakes alongside the fudge icing from Veganomicon :

Look at the cute case from Paperchase too:

They have little snowmen and gingerbread men and things like that 🙂

Plus it now smells totally amazing at home- I love gingerbread so much 🙂

And to make myself even more festive I have been wrapping presents for the blogger secret santa!

So exciting!!

Oh, and anyone with children (or a class) might like this website for an online advent calendar. We look at it each day in class and it is fab- you find out about traditions in a different country every day.

What is your favourite thing to do/ buy at a Christmas fayre? The bottle raffle is always so popular but as I don’t drink alcohol it always seems a waste to buy a ticket. They have a secret present room where children can buy and wrap presents for their parents which I just love (although of course I do not buy things from it!).