Project 52 2020 week 52 – Christmas napkins

I hope everyone had a merry Christmas however it turned out. It certainly wasn’t a Christmas anyone could have foreseen. On the stroke of midnight on Boxing Day, our county along with most of the south and east of the country went into Tier 4 – basically a stay at home order except for essential needs. Fun times given our nearest shop is just over the border in tier 4. Not a surprise given Covid cases are up a ridiculous amount in our area,

Here’s our week 52 of Project 52.

On Sunday, it was what ended up being the last tennis of the year (and possibly for a long time if we all end up in lockdown). They were lucky to get in a session and there were only 6 of the older ones so it wasn’t so much of a crush on one court while the 2 tots were on the other court.

Monday was the first day of the holidays for N and myself. My fitbit decided to die – well, get the same white lines over that the last one did back in August. I’ve only had this replacement since then so it’s rubbish it didn’t last long. I debated changing to Garmin even though I don’t need all the running and GPS. But when you get 50% off a Fitbit, it makes no sense to change. I enjoyed doing some papercrafts for Christmas. My Christmas food shop arrived with only 1 (reasonable) substitution so I was happy (not impressed by boxing day when we opened the cream to find despite it being 4 days in day, it was off – not one, but two pots).

On Tuesday we didn’t do much. Played some board games, watched films and just generally relaxed.

Wednesday I got out the sewing machine. I wanted to make some Christmas napkins. I had some lovely fabric – it took a couple of attempts as the first tutorial wasn’t that straightforward to follow. But I was really pleased with them by the end. N was very impressed too. I think I’ll make more over the year – they’ll be good for gifts next year if I can practice enough.

Thursday was Christmas Eve, and we did lots of prep. I picked up the turkey from the farm shop, 9th in the queue just before it opened at 8. Then made cheesecake, and braised the cabbage for the next day, as well as prepping the veg. N helped me with the cheesecake. Usually for Christmas eve we go to the pub with all the family but this year we went and got takeaway fish and chips.

Christmas day was Friday. Stocking opening was 7, so not too early, before the OH went back out to finish the work. We popped over to drop off my brother’s gift and wished him merry Christmas. The went home to open presents. N did very well and loved his New Holland hoody (he doesn’t like that we have John Deere tractors on the farm), his hockey stick, and his Xbox steering wheel set. He’s had me outside playing hockey with him, thankfully only for a short time because it’s knackering!

It was a quiet day – they went for a walk to the OH’s sister’s and brother’s to drop their gifts off after a well timed lunch. I’d ordered an 11lb turkey – it turned out to be 15lb! So we have a lot of leftovers.

On Saturday, Boxing Day, it was board games, leftovers, setting up the new tv (and switching old tv into the back room, HD recorder set up, xbox, firestick, new tv connections etc), and removing the oldest tv. Both the old tvs still work so I’m not sure why the OH had to buy a new one – especially as I’d only just bought and set up a second firestick on the backroom tv – that was a waste of money and time!). Not sure what I’ll do with the old tv – it was my mum’s but is still in working order, so don’t want to get rid in case we need it at some point. The OH has now realised we have Prime and Netflix now there’s a button for each on the new tv remote. So hopefully I’ll now not have to watch as many repeats of westerns.

That’s Christmas done for another year. N said he really enjoyed it because it was different and there wasn’t food he didn’t like at tea time (he’s a good eater, but isn’t keen on rice salad, potato salad or bean salad). It might have been a different Christmas to normal, but it was nice, and we got to do one of my favourite things which is doing the cooking together.

New posts this week, the final ones of Blogmas.

• School days December
• Fun family games to play at Christmas
• Capturing Christmas on film when you’ve a reluctant family
• Homemade Christmas papercraft decorations
• Wasgij Christmas 7 – Christmas Stuffing