Pickling In Me PJ's!!!

I was up way earlier than I wanted to be this morning because Smudge was werriting at the back door. No going back to bed else I would have fallen asleep and probably not surfaced until lunchtime and I wasn't having that.
PJ's were warm and cosy so I just slung my apron on and started on the cucumbers and onions I had left draining overnight. I'm just waiting now for the jars to finish sterilising and that is one job out of the way today.


For the life of me I can't seem to get a good picture of the Christmas tree so I have had to lift a picture from my Pinterest board taken in 2015.
The tree is pretty much the same except that we have added a giant lollipop to the topper and removed the giant poinsettia. We have also added one new decoration of a front door with a wreath.

The garland on the mantelpiece looks lovely although looking at the photo I do spot a little bare space so it needs some tweaking.

The living room looks so cosy at night with all the lights on.

The kitchen dresser will be done in the next couple of days and then I think I am done with decorating and all the boxes can go back upstairs out of the way.

The weather was awful this morning when I got up. Still some of the strong wind from overnight and then we had a short thrashing down of rain. Now it looks to be quite sunny but there are still some grey clouds about so I expect we will get more of the wet stuff before the day is out.

I managed to pick up a ham when I went shopping last night. This will be cooked and used for our traditional Christmas Eve meal of ham, salad and chips. I'm hoping that I still have the A**a Christmas book from last year as I would like to do the rum and blackcurrant ham I did last year which was beautiful.
The festive food is just about sorted apart from fresh stuff and the few bits I want to make in advance to freeze.....pork, chestnut and cranberry sausage rolls, mince pies and some cheese straws to go with Ruby's request for my no vegetable vegetable soup which is packed with veg but whizzed down to remove all the lumps....lol. She would like it for a starter on Christmas Day.

I'm starting to flag a bit now with being up so early so I think a nice cup of coffee to spark me up and then on with the jobs.

*Edited to add that I have just tried to make myself a cup of coffee with a teabag.......maybe I should have just gone back to bed.....lol*

Hope your day is wonderful.
Sheila-x-