As a pre-Christmas treat we flew to New York. This was only my second trip to the US ever so I had plenty to do and see.
It’s an impressive city, across six days we managed to walk for 25 hours. And we only scratched the surface.
Here are some pictures from the trip. And just as a note it was late November/early December when we went over and the festive season was already in full swing.
While admiring the decorations in London, it’s always nice to appreciate the ones a bit closer to home. These decorations aren’t new but the variety of lights across the city centre are fun. I especially like the projections of snowflakes across the Town Hall building.
It’s always fun to be a tourist in London, especially near Christmas time. I haven’t been to the capital for a while so it was nice to just wander around and take photos.
I went to the store Liberty for the first time and I found the building absolutely beautiful. While in that part of the city I also explored Carnaby Street and went in my new favourite cupcake shop in Kingly Court. While all the time finding lots of pretty lights and decorations.
In November 2013 it was part of my job as a Social Media Executive for Sister to update the Carnaby Facebook page on the day of the Carnaby Christmas lights switch on. The role involved posting a variety of pictures, videos and status updates to let people know what was happening on Carnaby throughout the day.
Below is a selection of the posts I made which covered the festive Carnaby shopping party, the countdown to the switch on and the big reveal of the Christmas lights.
On the day of the Regent Street Christmas lights switch on in November 2013 I ran the Regent Street Facebook page. This involved posting updates and pictures from the day as well as responding to comments left on the Facebook page.
The point was to promote Regent Street for Christmas shopping and to let people know what was happening on the London street for the switch on of the Christmas lights.
Here’s a selection of the Facebook posts from the day demonstrating the use of photos, the countdown to the reveal of the Christmas lights and shows engagement with customers, artists and musicians performing on the day and Regent Street stores.
I didn’t realise that I was in a Christmas mood until I noticed that my last few blog posts have been about it. I think I can live with that though. After last week’s special Food for Thought I still had plenty of interviews and ideas to make another special, and when else am I going to use it?
This week was a slightly different take as there was a history lesson from the Museum of Lincolnshire Life who helped me to find out what dinner Victorian families could expect on Christmas Day. There’s also Christmas sandwich reviews and help if you have a vegetarian coming round over the holidays.
You can listen to this week’s show in full here:
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A lot of our Christmas traditions come from the Victorians, and when I think of a Victorian Christmas Day I think of Scrooge from ‘A Christmas Carol’ asking for the biggest goose to share with those less fortunate than him. Talking to the Museum of Lincolnshire Life, who held a Victorian Christmas, the Dickens tale is close to reality. To find out more and hear some of the Dickens novel listen here.
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I do love what shops think a Christmas sandwich should be like, so in the run up to making these Christmas specials I was loving The Poke’s video reviews of said sandwiches.
Then when making programmes you get silly ideas. So I tweeted the guy who came up with the reviews and asked him onto Siren FM and he agreed. Reviewing sandwiches may sound like fun, but Adam takes it seriously as he explained to me.
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When I was thinking about all the important parts of a Christmas dinner I came to realise that if you aren’t a vegetarian you would be a bit stuffed. After chatting to some vegetarians it turns out nut roasts aren’t that nice either. Then I spoke to Karin Ridgers from Veggie Vision TV who gave the show plenty of ideas for vegetarians and vegans as well as pointing out mistakes that people make when catering for others.
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Hopefully you now have some ideas for what to make and eat over this Yuletide season. Food for Thought does carry on over the holidays on Siren FM on Wednesdays at 2pm and Saturdays at 3pm with some best bits.
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It may only be the early days of December but I have started to plan Christmas. This is after months of purposefully ignoring it. Now I have succumbed to the yuletide spirit I am ‘urming’ and ‘ahhing’ over what Christmas cake to make. I am not a fan of the traditional fruit cake, so if I am going to make a cake then I am going to make sure that it is something I really like.
Last year was the first time I made a Christmas cake. I made a chocolate cake, with the sides covered in a white chocolate buttercream and the top was melted white chocolate. It wasn’t the prettiest cake ever made, but it tasted pretty good.
Now I am in a bit of a conundrum as to what to make this year. Initially I wanted to make four smallish cakes which spelt out xmas. Then the cakes could have been different flavours and decorated individually. However, my Mum said that these types of cake can be deceptively hard. So back to the drawing board.
The next bit of inspiration is from my advent calendar. I may be 22-years-old but I still make sure to get an advent calendar. To add to the childishness of this I went for one with Percy Pig on. Instead of milk chocolate the daily treats are white chocolate and raspberry flavour, so that they are piggy pink. My boyfriend then suggested that this could be good combination for our Christmas cake.
Whatever I decide to do I am going to try make the cake look prettier than last year’s attempt. Not quite sure what to do yet, but picked up some festive stencils from Lakeland so will make sure that they get used.
I also fancy making a yule log, but don’t want to overindulge too much. So, dear Internet, what ideas for Christmas cake do you have that are not the traditional fruit cake?