Stir it up Sunday - Week Thirteen of the Holiday Grand Plan

The Nativity scene at the Shopping Centre
Its Week Thirteen in the Holiday Grand Plan and whilst our American friends are stressing about Thanksgiving over here in the UK we aren't.... although saying that I have promised Top Ender a proper American Thanksgiving meal this week, (with marshmallows in Sweet potato mash and everything!) and I am making a few little table decorations including a tissue paper turkey... maybe I will stress a little.

This week in the Grand Plan it is the week for attention to be placed in the Dining room. I don't have a dining room, but I do have a dining area. At the moment the dining table is is covered in things that shouldn't be there so my number one task for this week is to get that moved. I am also going to need to move a toy chest so that we have area to put up our tree...

Tomorrow night we are taking a photo of Top Ender and Baby Boy to go with our Christmas cards. There has been a slight amendment to our plan of taking at the shopping centres display and we are going to take it in our back garden instead. When we went to the shopping centre we discovered that this year all of the display is behind fences and so it didn't make a very nice background...

Today was the last Sunday before advent, colloquially known as Stir it up Sunday. It has traditionally become the day on which the Christmas pudding is made and this year I have made my own for the first time! Finding a Christmas pudding that was suitable for coeliac Daddy and Mormon Mummy (read no alcohol) and didn't cost a small fortune was proving to be difficult. I followed the recipe laid out in English Mum's post making a couple of extra changes to suit our families tastes and traditions (butter instead of suet, extra apple juice instead of tea and I used some peel sorry English Mum but it had to be done!) but we all had a stir and made a wish.

This week I also need to carry on with the holiday prep which this week consists of:

*Make one batch of Holiday Goodies.
*Make one extra meal for freezer again labeled HOLIDAY MEAL.
*Buy two canned food items from menus
*Work at least 2 hour a day on homemade gifts.

And we will continue to;

*Look for a Holiday Outfit for Me and tights for Top Ender (I'm starting to think the ones she described don't exist!)
*Stock the Mummy Christmas Shop with chocolate
*Watch one Christmas film as a family a week
*Continue with Top Ender writing her Christmas cards to the children in her year
*Continue planning weekly Christmas memory events (although I have now booked all the big events)!

As always if you would like to see how some others are preparing for Christmas take a look at theses fellow Bloggers and share the comment love with them;

Krista at Typical Ramblings
Candace at Diary of a FlyBaby
Diane at DianeDenmark
Kelly at Life at the Quinn Home
Hannah at Home Baked