Christmas Necessities

Thanks for hopping over from Emma at The Mummy Balancing Act and welcome to my post for the eleventh day of #12daysofparenting. We have many prizes to giveaway including a Snoozeshade Original from today's sponsors, Snoozeshade. Full details can be found on the 12 Days of Parenting Facebook page, and all entries to be completed via the Rafflecopter at the bottom of this post.

A lot of bread sauce for the two of us on our honeymoon!

I love Christmas, but there are a few things that I absolutely need if Christmas is going to be just right. These are the things that come out year after year, or that live permanently on my Christmas shopping list, so that I can't forget them.

First off, Christmas just isn't Christmas for me if I can't have Bread Sauce with my Christmas Dinner, and enough of it to have leftovers to add to Boxing Day sandwiches, or just eat out of the bowl with a spoon. And it has to be proper bread sauce; none of this packet nonsense. I usually find that people who say they don't like bread sauce have never tried the real, homemade stuff. If that's you, then now's your year, folks. I use Delia's Traditional Bread Sauce recipe. It's simple and delicious, and I pretty much know it off by heart now.

Saint Delia!

Talking of Delia, my second necessity is Delia's Complete Cookery Course. Our copy was a wedding present, but I was using my mum's copy long before that. It's full of fantastic recipes, including the bread sauce recipe above, and a weights and temperatures conversion chart, as well as tips for cooking the turkey, making gravy, and preparing veg. It can all be found on the internet, of course, but I love being able to look through a book.


I wouldn't be without my meat thermometer either. I suspect that getting food poisoning over Christmas would be a sure fire way of ruining the holiday, so it's a great way of checking that the meat is cooked. Mine came in a box with the right temperatures on the side, which saves me from having to check every time.


Moving away from food now, another big part of the Christmas period is the telly, so I like to have a Radio Times Christmas Issue. Even though we don't have an aerial, so don't often watch live tv, and would probably miss the start of any programme anyway, I like looking through the magazine to see what's going to be on, and what we can catch on iPlayer later on. I used to love that moment, as a child, when Dad would come into the house with the Christmas Radio Times. It was time to grab a pen and start circling all the things we wanted to watch, and then to start working out what we would have to record to watch later when things began to clash. And that was with only 4 channels!

And finally, that vital piece of Christmas kit, is glitter glue! It's a marvel. No glitter floating around, getting into every crevice, every nook, into eyes and hair and nappies. Just sparkly designs, easily applied to every Christmas craft. Perfect!

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