'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe

Finally caught up just in time!

So here I am at long last at Christmas Eve. All the presents are wrapped, all the cards have been delivered - or at least posted - and the Christmas meal has been bought.

And the advent calendars are almost over. One is - today's the final day for the Lindt calendar - but the mystery and Thorntons calendars still have another day to go.



Today's origami: a rabbit!

The snowman is almost completed as well - it just wants one more piece from tomorrow:



That's all, until Christmas Day!

My snowman has a face!

No origami for a change today, but instead a lemon, ginger & honey tea to go with a toffee finger and a piece of the snowman's scarf.

As I've tried to do most weekends I headed out for a randomish walk - well, this was less random than usual as I had a selection of Christmas cards to deliver locally, a few more to post (some internationally which have epically missed the last posting date - so omgimsuchadork, rustica and crazyscot you're probably getting New Year's cards instead :P) and a handful of parcels to drop off (which are just in time for the last 1st class post). And on the way I spotted this wrapped around a streetlamp:



To the NHS and all key workers: We are with you

Only one week left until Christmas Day! Again, no photo of today's haul, which contained origami for yet another sheep (where did my sister find them all?) and a selection of chocolate.

There's another blog post incoming for today - I discovered that at Mottisfont they actually had the main house partly open as they'd decorated it for Christmas. So I took the day off work (partly because good luck getting a booking slot at the weekend, and partly because unsurprisingly I've got plenty of holiday left what with Covid cancelling everything) and meandered up there to have a look and enjoy a day of not doing much. I unfortunately picked a fairly wet day to visit, but I managed to dodge the worst of the showers and while it's not as impressive as past years it's still worth a visit. Photos to follow!

My snowman now has a top hat! Well... part of one at least :P

And of course there's more chocolate: lindt mini lindor, and the very lemony sicilian mousse. Om nom nom...

What was in there at the start of the week, anyway?

Slightly more today: a puzzle piece, night time tea, and a fudge chocolate, to go with the Lindt napolitain and a Thorntons Viennese deluxe. The jigsaw is taking shape...



But that's not all - this arrived from work as well:



So, a few weeks ago work messaged everyone saying that the usual Christmas meal wasn't going to be a thing this year (because Covid), and that they were exploring alternative ideas. And they asked everyone for a preference for sweet or savoury. I picked sweet.

I wasn't expecting this much chocolatey goodness...

A bumper haul from the mystery calendar at the weekend!



The origami instructions are for a sheep! Now where did I put the pad of origami paper.

In the other calendars were another mini Lindt and a Thorntons Gianduiot cocoa hazelnut chocolate. And over in my Nordic e-calendar, the tale of Gryla & the Yule Lads which reminds me a bit of the sort of tales in Grimm's Fairy Tales...

Still days behind on updating this...

Day 10's haul was a chocolate coin, interesting tea, a vanille truffle, and a Lindt snowdrop.



And over in the Jacquie Lawson Nordic calendar, a recipe for Glögg (which looks very much like a variant on mulled wine). I shall have to try making some up!

Let's see... tea, a toffee finger, and another piece! (and in the other calendars, a Thorntons Hazelnut Milano and another mini Lindor)



And hmm... if I do this...



Progress!

Tucked away in pocket number 6, we have...



The Purple One. Hmm... a whole hazelnut in a caramel filling? Om nom nom. And a "feel new" tea which I've not had before (perhaps that'll head into work tomorrow?), and a puzzle piece which doesn't join up with the others yet. Inside the other calendars there's yet another Lindt napolitain (there's only seven of those in it and I've found five so far!), and a Thorntons salted caramel, also with hazelnut filling.

But wait, there's more! Apparently my advent calendar was missing some pieces, so I met up with my sister today - actually, we then drove all the way to Goring Gap for a socially distanced meetup and present exchange with our parents, and I now have yet another advent calendar thing but that's for another blog post. Once back at my flat I carefully opened the bag and found these:



Curiouser and curiouser! Well, it's the 6th so I can open the first few, and I unfolded packet 1 to find...



Origami! 🤣 I've still got the origami sheets from 2018 somewhere - I was very tempted to dig them out anyway as this feels like a year for ALL THE ADVENT CALENDARS - but now I don't have to as I've got new ones to look forward to. So instead I unearthed the pad of origami paper and set about puzzling through the instructions for day 1, and eventually folded together this:



I've also opened days 3 and 6 to discover more origami - those I'm saving for another day!