Christmas 2015

I thought I'd do a little update on how Christmas went as I've been absent for a little while. I love Christmas, not sure if I've really made that clear on here but I really really do, always have.

This year we had not one, but two Christmas trees, one in the lounge with all the presents etc underneath, and a real one in the hall which we decorated with just lights which I loved.

It would be pretty fair to say I didn't eat remotely low carb over Christmas and ate non stop for about four days. Surprisingly, though, when I weighed myself this morning, for the first time since Christmas, I had put on 4.5 lbs which I'm actually really pleased with. I know that would horrify most people but considering how much I ate I was expecting far far worse.

Christmas day was pretty standard, we woke up, did presents in bed, went downstairs and did a few more. We had oatcakes and cheese (obligatory Staffordshire breakfast), then started preparing lunch. Later on some family arrived and we had a few nibbles and champagne, before sitting down and eating our Christmas dinner. As chef table/ room decorator, with my sister as deputy we went a bit mad in the dining room with candles and fairy lights, so much so that we hadn't actually left enough space for the food so we had to move some (the picture below shows it before we smothered the table in lights). We ate and ate, and horrifyingly had eaten so much that we had to abandon the Christmas pudding and it didn't get eaten (still hasn't in fact).

In the evening we picked at some of the leftovers, had some mince pies and tipple of our choices- I had Brandy, watched some Christmas tv and chatted lots. We ate these delicious mince pies from asda which are gluten free. I know lots of you aren't necessarily low carb but instead follow this blog because you eat gluten free and most low carb recipes are also gluten free. These mince pies are delicious with a light crumbly pastry and plenty of gluten free mincemeat inside!

The following day was pretty lazy, we all slept in after not going to bed very late in the end. I headed down to my Nana's house for a coffee and gossip for a few hours while I waited for the rest of the house to rouse. I returned home, played with some of my presents (I am essentially still a child), we went for a little walk, everything was looking very festive, and we went past my favourite house; each year they decorate the house like a Christmas present!

We got ready and all headed back down to nana's house in the evening for turkey fajitas to use the rest of the turkey up. My sister and I had vegetable fajitas though as the token veggies in the family.

Sunday was a quiet day, we hung around the house, ate some more, watched lots of tv, listened to Christmas music and had a lovely, low key day. We made some low carb biscuits with a chocolate cream cheese filling, the recipe for which will be coming very soon!

 I dried some orange slices in the aga with my sister after seeing Zoella do it on a vlog, we're going to keep them to decorate some Christmas presents that we still haven't given, as there's still some family we haven't seen and exchanged gifts with. I also dried some cranberries and ginger, and we're going to use these to mull some wine with.

Monday, my mum headed off on holiday so I woke up at the crack of dawn to take her to the airport, then in the evening we headed over to a friends house and had yet more food and drink, listened to even more Christmas music and had a lovely Christmassy evening.

That brings us to today. I've taken an extra day off work just to prolong things slightly and given myself today to recover from hangovers, psyche myself up to eat marginally normally tomorrow, pack the car up, say bye to people and prepare myself mentally for tomorrow.

I'll be back in a day or two talking about New Year, we're having a pretty low key one this year but I'm excited nonetheless! Hope you all had a lovely holiday!