Jingle bells

So the house is decorated and I'm about to make up beds while listening out for text messages telling me how Daughter 2 and her man are getting on in their attempt to get to Edinburgh from London on a snow-disrupted train line.

I've featured Santa before. I got him when Daughter 1 was in her pram. She insisted on cuddling him as we walked to the shops and after a while - just as we'd come up the hill on our way home - I noticed that his hat was missing.

It was a heavy pram, Daughter 1 was at that sonsie (chubby) stage of babyhood, but down the hill we went again to retrieve the hat.

This Santa dates from my childhood. My mother was going to throw him out some years ago. NO!!! I gave him a new beard and hat fluff and he's good for another 50 years, surely?

I bought the stained glass candle-holder in the early years of our marriage, though I usualy just place it under a lamp to light up the design. If I use a candle, then blowing it out tends to spatter the inside with wax.

The girls gave me this as a Christmas card when they were little. It's by Janet and Allan Ahlberg.

I got this last year and really like it.

These birds were made by my mother-in-law, who died in 1991. They need a bit of adjustment. Maybe this year they'll get it.

I just like this glass star. It's hanging from a plate from my grandmother's wedding china, beside another old plate I bought years ago just because I thought it was pretty.

What would Christmas be without these incredibly heavy yellow glass balls, hung from the light fitting on the lowish ceiling in the sitting room just ready to strike unwary tall people on the head? (Sorry, Mr Life etc.)

I would like to have made this cushion. But I cannot lie. I bought it. It's jolly, though, no?

Oh, that's the last picture. I suppose I'd better get on with the tasks, then. Beds, hoovering, dusting etc. and clearing my mother's path of snow.

I hope everyone's sitting in a clean, tidy house eating mince pies and chatting to their loved ones. I also hope that this is what I'll be doing this evening. Some of my loved ones, anyway.