christmas crumble

The boy patiently (sort of) counted down the days until Christmas. We made cookies and decorated a gingerbread house.

The boy tried to convince us to open presents before Christmas.

And finally it was Christmas Eve. We put out hot chocolate and chocolate chip cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer and waited for Christmas Day. While we wouldn't have known by the weather that it was Christmas, ie wet and grey, we had a lovely day.

The boy loved his new bike

and the rest of his presents. He assembled his many new Lego kits all by himself and played his new Angry Birds game for hours.

For Christmas dinner, I wanted a lighter version of our usual mincemeat pie. Lately I've made a lot of crisps based on Deb's recipe for Apricot Breakfast Crisp and my husband gobbles them up. So for Christmas, I made a Christmas crumble with mincemeat and apple. Lovely.

Christmas Crumble (Mincemeat and Apple Crumble) - inspired by Smitten Kitchen Cookbook

2 Gala apples, peeled, cored, finely diced
1/2 jar of mincemeat
grated fresh nutmeg
4 tbsp butter, melted
1/3 c brown sugar
1/2 c rolled oats
1/2 c flour
2 tbsp sliced almonds

In a medium casserole, mix the apple and mincemeat. Add a few gratings of fresh nutmeg.

In a bowl, mix together the sugar, oats, flour and sliced almonds. Add the melted butter and mix well until blended. Pour over the mincemeat mixture in an even layer.

Bake at 400 deg F for 30 minutes until browned and bubbly.

around our house

A few pictures of life around our house. These were taken a couple of weeks before Christmas.

T was painting when I got home one afternoon - this is his picture of a whale. The big red splotch in the middle is the big whale tummy, with the whale teeth on the left (pointy, pink) and the whale tale on the right.

T wanted to make cookies using the Christmas cookie cutters. In an effort to save time, I thought I hit upon a brilliant idea - use chocolate chip cookie dough. So I rolled out the dough and we cut out the shapes and baked them. Oops! Not such a great idea - the shapes spread into unrecognisable shapes. I managed to recut some of them so T wasn't too disappointed.

The mail that day included a parcel for me - a present to myself!

I tell myself I had to get them to qualify for free shipping for the gifts that also came with these books...

T made lego things and played with the cow

(well, the cow was licking my sweater!) and I tried to put together a snowflake garland.