Even though they had been predicting snow, I was still surprised to see the blanket of snow in the garden this morning.  Fortunately I collected all the greens for my outside Christmas decorations earlier in the week and managed to complete several wreaths, an urn container and the garlands for the railings outside.  In my next post I will go into further detail on how I made these festive items.

In the meantime, the winter scene has inspired me to start on my inside Christmas decorating.  I normally do not begin this early but I couldn’t resist decorating my mantel above the fireplace.  I also made a start on my Christmas baking, in particular mince pies.  I love to make my mincemeat from scratch (courtesy of Delia Smith).  The only thing I change is adding butter rather than suet particularly if you are serving mince pies to vegetarian friends.  Just smelling the different fruits in the mincemeat brings back so many treasured Christmas memories.