Snowmen Candy Wraps for a 200th Friday Smile

I am getting things together for Christmas and I've managed to put up two Christmas trees, an easy fibre optic one in the living room and a bigger one in the dining room. I've decorated the living room windows with a swag of greenery with some lights and also fastened a wreath of lights to our front door so in the grand scheme of things I am doing OK with my festive plans.

Next week I will enjoy a Christmas dinner with my quilt group so I made all the 20 members one of these little chocolate bars with snowmen wraps instead of a card. They are so easy to make and there are plenty of free printable templates on pinterest if anyone wants to make some. I have made these little characters for many years now and I use scraps of fleece for the hats and scarves, which only need a few stitches to seam the hats, as it doesn't fray. 

If I am in need of more fabric I buy a red felt sack or a Santa suit from a £1 shop to cut up, as it is far cheaper than buying felt from a fabric store.

The small chocolate bars come in packs of 5 from Aldi for around £1.30 a pack

 I also made the table cloth above right for the Christmas dinner table from a fabric remnant. It doesn't look much crumpled up there but it only needs pressing before I use it.

I can't believe how time has flown since last week when I was in Germany visiting part of my family.

We enjoyed the Christmas markets especially the mediaeval market in the old town where all the stall holders dressed in period costume and they only sold traditional crafts which would have been made for that time.

We couldn't pass this stalwart mediaeval mob through to the stalls, until we had dropped money into their coffers, which I presume and hoped was for charity.

CELEBRATIONS!!

I am popping over to Annie's blog to join in her weekly Friday Smile but this week is a very special day as it is the 200th time she has brought her smiles to us and invited us to share our own smiles too. Annie is such a lovely lovely person and we got to know each other through blog land and we have subsequently met up in real life too. She really is a ray of sunshine, the kindest person who is always willing to help and it makes me smile just to think about her.

Huge Happy Friday Smile 200th Anniversary

 and thank you so much for giving so many of us hundreds of smiles. 

It makes us all realise how lucky we are even when we are feeling down.

Visit to Germany as Advent began.

 Back home after my trip to Germany and what a lovely way to start Advent. 

The mini hats, that I knitted quite some years ago, made another appearance along with the fabric boots which are only a couple of years old.

My daughter started off her decorations with this swag of greenery, lights and bows, up the staircase.

We ventured out on a very cold and frosty Sunday morning (-5C) to visit the local animal park for the children to join in a Christmas event.

First the children chopped fruit and vegetables (with really sharp knives) which would never have been allowed in England with all our "health and safety" attitude. No fingers were cut even though some of the children were only 3 years old. Great experience!

They then ground seeds before mixing into the bowls of veg and fruit.

Burning logs in a brazier warmed us and smelled amazing.

We all visited the animals so the children could feed them the food they had prepared.

I really loved this white alpaca and he looked like he was wearing a bad toupee.

I had so much fun with the German half of my family but he is going to be my 

Friday Smile for Annie.... who reckons that this fellow is a "Trump" lookalike!!!

Join in for a bit of fun or just pop over to see some more of Annie's weekly happy post.

The only one we had to beware of was this fine buck

Back into the barn and time for making some decorations from straw, wire and beads.....

 then we sat around the tree, decorated with the children's rustic baubles and stars, for hot chocolate and carols.

It was a wonderful visit and it only cost 1 euro each! Simple fun for all and what a memory for all the little ones.