Christmas Eve 2025

The few days before Christmas were a bit of a nightmare - things happened at work and I ended up sorting it out and staying there ages on the Tuesday, so I was glad to be off work for a good while after that. Lee had to work Wednesday morning but I just hung around the house. In the past few years Lee and I have been out for lunch on Christmas Eve and I was keen to carry on this tradition. It just sets the tone for Christmas in some way for me. It is nice to just spend the time with the two of us before seeing tons of people over Christmas, and it gives a nice ending to the busy-ness of working before and everything. So I had booked a table at the Waggon and Horses which is a lovely pub in Oxspring. It's really close to where we live now, and I had been there for craft club Christmas dinner a couple of weeks before this. Lee likes their Yorkshire puddings so he readily agreed.

We got there about 1pm and shared some Yorkshire puddings to start with. I can't remember what I had for mains, I am really failing as a blogger here and didn't take a photo! Oh well, it was delicious. We got home and I made my lemon cheesecake. It is famous in our family for being delicious and it's even been featured on TV! Sometimes it doesn't quite set properly but mine all looked amazing and set perfectly. I ended up making three as there was a lot of mixture, but I knew they would get eaten. One of the amazing things about our new house is that our old fridge lives in the garage and I usually keep it full of wine and other drinks, but it helped at Christmas to have space for puddings and so on. 

My mum and stepdad arrived about 3pm I think. They, like us, were excited to spend our first Christmas in our new house! We helped them unpack everything and then we just relaxed. We had all had big lunches so we had just bits for tea, and lemon cheesecake of course. We unpacked all the presents round the tree. One of the great things about this house is the size of the living room. It's huge, but also somehow feels really cosy? I love it. It was especially cosy with a Christmas tree in it. The tree was new and it's massive! Katniss claimed one of the presents for herself and slept there for ages, so cute. It was a nice, relaxing day. 

I ordered this Yule log from a woman locally and she delivered it while I was at work I think. It was basically just ganache inside with some brownie bits, so very rich. I only had a bit but Lee liked it and my cousin did too

The Christmas tree. Our living room is on the first floor of the house and has a Juliet balcony. We need to cat proof it but when we do I'm looking forward to having these doors open in the summer. The tree looked gorgeous!

My nails for Christmas were an OPI mini in a lovely glittery red, it lasted well and was very festive

Yorkshire puddings for starter

The hearth in the pub - which is a really old building - had this gorgeous decoration. It was so cosy and lovely

My cheesecake was a success! 

My mum and stepdad had been on a cruise for my stepdad's birthday and they bought me these tiny crocheted earrings, aren't they so cute?

And finally here's Katniss on one of the presents as we relaxed in the evening