Advent Calendar Day 22

The pocket for Day 22 of my elder daughter's Advent Calendar contained a wooden reindeer which I had bought at the York Käthe Wohlfahrt Christmas shop when visiting there with my daughter at the end of September. She had liked it at the time, so when she wasn't looking it went in my shopping basket. 

Day 22 pocket

Furry side of the wooden reindeer

Back of the wooden reindeer

When she unwrapped it she couldn't stop stroking it as the furry side of the reindeer is very soft.

The reindeer on the tree

Advent Calendar Day 7

The pocket for Day 6 of my elder daughter's Advent Calendar contained a little reindeer character we first encountered in the Käthe Wohlfahrt Christmas shop in York at the end of September. She had commented at the time that she liked him, so when she wasn't looking he went into my shopping basket along with a few other things. 

Day 7 pocket

Teddy Reindeer Christmas decoration

I bought the brown reindeer character with a pink bow for her younger sister, so when she had emptied the pocket and opened the packet, the two reindeer greeted each other through the video call screen as the girls compared them and laughed.

Lady Crazie visits the Gingerbread House

It is Epiphany, the Christmas decorations have been packed away apart from the crib scene as the Wise Men have come to visit.  However one item from Christmastide hasn't gone. In fact, I only made it a week after Christmas day - the gingerbread was cut and baked on 31 December 2014, the icing and assembly of the house was done on 1 January 2015.  This was my first attempt at a Gingerbread house (pretty messy) and Lady Crazie, all the way from Germany where these houses are very traditional, came to inspect our efforts, along with her new friends Clemence the bear and and Laura's Owl.

Owl and Lady Crazie perched on the Gingerbread house while Clemence enjoyed the rich smell of Gingerbread and icing

Owl liked his perch on the chimney, while Lady Crazie liked the roof

Clemence wanted to sample the house, but was afraid of upsetting the owner

Lady Crazie and Owl chirped and hooted to each other on the roof

Clemence tried the front door to see if anyone was at home

Clemence peered around the side of the Gingerbread house, was anyone there?

While the owl and Lady Crazie chirped and hooted at each other,
Clemence the bear went exploring round the house
to see if anyone was at home, he even looked through the back windows

Clemence peered around from the back of the house

Clemence was quite sure by this time that no one was at home,
Lady Crazie checked the front door again just to be sure.

Lady Crazie sat on the front door step of the Gingerbread house

Lady Crazie seemed to like the house, the owl came to perch on the roof

Clemence started to gnaw off some of the icing snow on the roof

The owl pecked at the roof icing

then flew with a piece of icing in his beak to the chimney perch

Clemence sat down to enjoy his piece of icing, with Lady Crazie

Lady Crazie with the gifts she brought from the Sasha Commoneos

The chocolates which Lady Crazie brought with her didn't last very long, my younger daughter (who helped me with this scene) ate the last one - the wrapper is shown in the photo above.  Also shown is a gorgeous little Christmas card, two beautiful miniature wooden reindeer and a photo card of the Sasha Commoneo family and Lady Crazie with her family whom she has left at home.  Thank you Anne for sending her to us, she has now gone upstairs (safely away from our dog), so who knows what adventures she will encounter next in our home.

Sasha girls in Scotland - part 3

Laura and Florence continue talking about our visit to Scotland (see Part 1 and Part 2): On Tuesday of May half term we visited the Scottish Deer Centre in Fife where we didn't just see lots of varieties of deer, but also otters, wildcats, a falconry display, wolves, lynx and ELK which were enormous!

Laura and Florence meet some deer

Reindeer resting - they didn't look ready to pull a sleigh!

A very large Elk - it would take about 10 Sasha's and Gregor's standing on top of each other to get onto his back

Watching the Otters - they were great fun

Two otters

The large tame owl decided to sit on our table in the falconry display

He was very impressive but also quite naughty, he didn't always come back when called

A magnificent falcon

The lovely kestrel

Laura does the tree top walk (above the Elk) - we didn't see any Red Squirrels unfortunately

On Wednesday morning, just before we left the Kingdom of Fife, we met Archbishop Desmond Tutu and a group of African dolls which live at the house where we stayed.

Laura and Florence meet Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Archbishop Tutu as a glove puppet

African dolls on the bedroom mantelpiece

African dolls on the bedroom mantelpiece

On Wednesday morning we travelled to Edinburgh.  That afternoon it rained very hard in the city, so we stayed indoors while the big people went outside and got wet (silly people).

Florence, Clemence and Fuzzy bear, Laura
sit in the bedroom chair at the B&B in Edinburgh

In fact they didn't take us out for the next two days which were not rainy, even when they visited the Museum of Childhood which was filled with lovely dolls and toys (many more than those at Kellie Castle). Apparently they told us there weren't any Sasha dolls in the museum and DollMum says she will blog about this separately as she took lots of photos.  But we are disappointed they didn't take us to visit all those dolly cousins (who were almost all stuck in glass cases).  Don't worry, we did get an outing in Edinburgh and will tell you all about that soon.