a peaceful morning

As I am writing this, peace and quiet is but a distant memory.

I stopped work on Tuesday evening. Well, more or less. It is always good to start the holidays with a clean house because little time and effort is spent on cleaning during the holidays and constant presence of the children increases the overall mess and stickiness. On Wednesday morning I started cleaning like a woman possessed. By nine, both bathrooms were clean. By ten, the hoovering was done. By 10:30 I was exhausted and I sat down with a coffee. What was missing was a Christmas biscuit to dunk. I always make a few batches in the run up to Christmas but a lack of kitchen seemed like a good excuse not to make any. Fuelled by caffeine and a smattering of insanity I decided to try out the new oven and bake some Christmas biscuits straight away. I made my two favourite kinds, Mailänderli and Spitzbuebe, both traditional Swiss Christmas biscuits. I have written about the Spitzbuebe before, they are really just fancy jammy dodgers. I spent a pleasant two hours getting myself covered in flour. I like to fill my Spitzbuebe with jelly. I was disappointed to discover that our jam supply is dangerously low, the only jelly to be found was a rather old blackberry one. The biscuits look different with a dark jelly filling, a bit sinister actually. They are meant to be dusted with icing sugar to look particularly pretty but I thought that would make them look a bit like something the Walking Dead would enjoy.

I lost interest about half way through the second batch of biscuits and decided to freeze the dough for another day. It was also time to drink another cup of coffee and dunk a few of the biscuits. It has been a long long time since I had a half day to myself and it was just perfect. I often think I should like to have the house to myself for a couple of hours a day at least, I really enjoy my own company. I listened to music nobody else would listen to (1980s Italian pop) and pondered life. It ain't bad I suppose.

Thus refreshed, I went to pick up the boys from school. It is only the second time since the summer that I have done that myself. I am not sure how I feel about that but I'll ponder this another time.

With two days to go until Christmas I feel quite relaxed. We are pretty low key here. Would you believe that we haven't decided on a dessert for Christmas day yet? And I guess we'll have to get those crackers tomorrow...

Right, I am off to bed. Wishing you a super fantastic Christmas weekend! I know Christmas for some is not a joy filled time. I'll be thinking of you specially.

Thanks for stopping by and spending a few minutes here. xxx