Last Friday started a run of a very busy few days, packed full of Christmas events.
It started off on Friday morning with the very lovely Gaelic Christmas service at Greyfriar's Kirk in Edinburgh. The service is held every year for all the pupils at the Gaelic school, all the Gaelic pupils in the High School, their families, and other Gaelic speakers who want to attend. It's so nice having all ages of the Gaelic school community together, from Primary 1 to S6.
Friday afternoon was spent in the kitchen, preparing for the Sunday School party the following day, and making my mum's birthday cake for that evening.
My mum and dad were down visiting for a few days and so we all got together at my brother's house on Friday evening to celebrate her birthday. Here she is with all of her Grandchildren.
I covered her cake in white icing and then Calum suggested that we use some of our metallic food spray because Granny likes a bit of sparkle and bling. So we covered it in gold spray and then finished it off with a few simple white snowflakes. I was finding a subtle gold shimmer on things near where I had made it in my kitchen for a couple of days afterwards!
Inside it I had aimed to make a checker-board effect.
On Saturday the morning was spent preparing cakes and games for the afternoon party, including these little holly cupcakes.
Then it was onto the excitement of the party and lots of shouting out instructions while organising the games.
The party ended with a visit from Santa!
Another tick on my to-do list that busy Saturday morning was to put the icing on my Christmas cake. I don't put marzipan on ours so that James, who has a nut allergy, can eat some.
On Sunday we enjoyed a little break in the busy-ness.
Although, it wasn't as bliss-fully quiet as it looks in this photo!
On Monday morning Ally (7) was singing some Gaelic Christmas Carols with his class at a shopping centre near the school, so Fraser and I went along to watch them and cheer them on.
I used my school run train time on Monday to put the finishing touches to this little guy.
He's called Jingles and Ally and Fraser are delighted with him. Maybe next year I'll make another one so that they can have one each.
On Tuesday morning we had out church Toddler Group party.
Then on Tuesday evening we all, including Granny & Shen and other Granny, went to watch the high school Christmas concert in the Usher Hall in Edinburgh.
Before the concert I took the younger three boys for a well needed haircut, and Fraser was delighted when the barber put some gel on his hair just like the big boys.
After the haircuts, and still before the show, we went out for some dinner with Granny & Shen.
We don't eat out for dinner as a family very often as it's so hard to do so with all the boys' allergies. They often end up with just a bowl of chips, or some plain baked potatoes. We wanted to go to the Beer Kitchen on Lothian Road, Edinburgh as it is so near the Usher hall and so had emailed them in advance about the allergies.
I saw on their online menu that they served Macsween's Haggis, which the boys can eat and love to do so, and so asked if it would be possible to serve it with mash that had no butter in it. The restaurant replied that as it's Christmas they have a different menu and so didn't currently have haggis on it, but that they always have it in stock and so would be happy to cook some for the boys along with some butter free mash.
Not only were they really helpful about the allergies, but the restaurant was lovely and the rest of the food was also delicious.
The concert was amazing, as it is every year. It was only the younger two boys sitting with us as James & Calum were both playing in the wind band, and David was taking part in the assembled choir made up of all the P7s from the feeder Primary schools.
Yesterday school finished at lunchtime for the holidays, and while Fraser and I waited for them to come home he suddenly noticed that someone had put Kevin the Carrot at the top of the tree, which he found hilarious!
In the afternoon yesterday we had some heavy snow showers, which got Fraser really excited as he is convinced that it has to snow for it to be Christmas, so when he saw the snow coming down he began jumping up and down shouting that it was Christmas at last!
It was far too wet for the snow to lie though, and he was fine with that too.
Then last night, while Storm Barbara started outside, we all watched a Christmas Movie we haven't seen before -Elf - to kick off the school holidays. I don't know how we have never got round to watching it before but we all found it really funny and it might just join Home Alone as one of our must watch movies of Christmas.
