Christmas Round-up!

Christmas was come and gone for another year.

I am terrible, once Boxing Day is over, Christmas is done for me. I could quite happily pack everything away but I do resist until New Year's Day. 

So here was our Christmas table

A glass of fizz - Cheers!

A feast for four.

It was delicious, even if I do say so myself.

One of the best presents - a telescopic, extend-able fork, so the 'Scrambler' can reach everywhere for leftovers!

Our table presents this year. I always try to do a different theme and this year the contents were influenced by the John Lewis advert - penguins!

Jeff and I managed to squeeze in a walk around the park, before an evening feeling stuffed on the sofa.

Round two - Boxing Day

Lunch with my sister and family and Father-in-Law

A rare pic of the four of us!

I hope you've all had a lovely Christmas.

The dots and spots SALE starts on the 29th December!

Merry Christmas

It's Christmas Eve and all there is left for me to do......

.......is to wish you all a very..........

.MERRY CHRISTMAS 

Hope you have a fun filled few days x

Family

This year Christmas will be very different - this will be the first year ever, it will be just the 4 of us on Christmas day. So we've been catching up with all the family beforehand.

Sunday evening was spent with Jeff's family - 16 of us altogether. It always amazes me how well all the children get on, ranging from 6-18 years. It was a lovely evening, the prosecco and wine flowed, yummy food and fab guitar playing by my nephews, with a game of bingo thrown into the mix - a great night.

There were treats too but I was good.....'ish!

Then today we met my family at Killerton in Devon for lunch....... 

........and a present swap in the car park!

The turkey was collected from M&S at 8.30 this morning and I've just the final fresh food shop to do in the morning, then it's time to settle down and enjoy Christmas x

Final weigh in of the year!

This morning was the final weigh in before Christmas and another 1.5 lbs off!

So that's 31lbs or 2st 3lbs off in 14 weeks - pretty chuffed with that.

 Chicken Stir Fry and Noodles

 Bacon, mushroom, onion and tomato pasta

 Baked salmon on roasted vegetable rice with vegetables

Bacon and egg buttie!

As you can see, I'm not starving myself, quite the opposite, I'm eating masses. The difference is, that everything is good, healthy, fresh food and it's tasty!

So a huge thank you to Slimming World. This will be the first Christmas in a long time that I will feel good about myself and can wear what I want, rather than wear what fits! As I mentioned before, I intend to give myself a couple of days 'off plan' over Christmas but then it's right back on it. 2015 will be my belated 'thin by 40' and 'thin by Take That' - goals I've previously set myself and never achieved. 2015 will be the year I reach Target and stay there - a healthy, happy me!

Merry Christmas x

It's a wrap!

One of the things I LOVE about Christmas is buying carefully chosen gifts and then having a huge 'wrap fest' where I take over the whole table and create one monster of a mess. The festive tunes are singing out, I have a constant mug of coffee on the go and I used to have the chocolate tin to hand (no longer!) I could spend all day there, merrily wrapping away.

Of course I use my paper - it's expected!

And why not, when it's such good quality and there are so many lovely designs and combinations to choose from - the perfect pile of presents!

I do use my ribbons too and ribbons recycled from Christmas's gone by.

I mix in a few different tags and it's job done.

Not forgetting the odd candy cane too x

Have you started wrapping yet?

Oh Christmas tree.....

Couldn't entice the boy to help decorate, so it was left to Sophie and I this year. Only one glass bauble casualty so not too bad!

Ta-daaaaa!

The finished tree with all her 600 lights!

I've not got a bad view from my spot on the sofa over the next couple of weeks. 

Have you decorated your tree yet?

Off to start on my present wrapping next - have a lovely day x

Tis the season to be jolly!

So this week I lost a pound!

It's okay, was a little disappointing but it's still a pound off in the right direction before Christmas and I did enjoy the Ikea meatballs earlier in the week, so it's a realistic loss and I am 29.5lbs lighter this Christmas.

We had our Slimming World Christmas meal today - well, we tried! It was a brave man to tell 17 hungry Slimming World members that they wouldn't be having their Christmas lunch due to a burst water main in the food area! Alternative arrangements were quickly made and we enjoyed a nice lunch together elsewhere, although minus the turkey. 

I've been thinking how I'm going to 'manage' Slimming World over the festive season. My plan is to stay pretty much 'on plan' but relax on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. I'm not going to go mad and gorge myself silly but I am going to enjoy a few festive foods and not feel guilty. I want to come out the other side of Christmas, without a big gain!

  

 I'm not buying in the panettone, stollen, mince pies, cake etc as I'm the main culprit for eating it, so I'm simply not going to have it there to tempt me. I am instead going to enjoy the crackers and cheese and stuffing and bread sauce alongside all the healthy stuff at proper meal times. I'd love to get into the next stone range and even lose a pound over Christmas if I can but I'm not going to be too hard on myself if I don't.

It will be my first Christmas in years where a mince pie won't have passed my lips!

Hope you have a lovely weekend - I'm house cleaning and tree decorating so best get on!