so martha!

Here are the presents for my family who are coming over tomorrow for Xmas dinner, all wrapped up and ready to go! I had some leftover hologrammic silver wrap from a couple of years ago, and bought a roll of silver ribbon. Everyone is getting an Oxfam "gift" of either textbooks, a chicken or a goat donation, plus a little box of lime and poppyseed cookies (I bought plain white boxes at $1.99 for 4 and stamped them with a fireworks design in silver and gold) and either a packet of local tea or fair trade coffee. The big present on the left is for my husband but I won't say what it is since he recently discovered this blog ;) I'm really pleased at how everything came out - I wanted to have a compromise between buying something, making something or donating on their behalf instead of a present, so did a bit of all three! Remains to be seen how they'll be received, of course - I'll let you know tomorrow.

This morning I braved the supermarket to pick up the fresh stuff for the meal tomorrow, and this afternoon I:
- roasted a large chicken a la Naked Chef
- made and baked sage and onion stuffing from scratch
- prepared and baked a cheesy vegetable dish of my own devising
- scrubbed the new potatoes
- made gravy from the chicken leftovers
- washed and dried all the dishes
- put all my clean washing away
I'm feeling pretty damn proud of myself, but there's still more to do. I was halfway through making the Xmas crackers when I needed to stop for a piece of toast and lime curd - lunch seems hours ago!