Saturday 24 December 2011

Making Mince pies for Santa (and other things)



When my own children were young we always had a Christmas tradition of making home made mince pies so we could leave some out for Santa.


top hats

making top hats
Dependant on the varying ages and stages they all helped in a fashion they could, be it rolling the pastry, cutting the shapes, putting in the filling, putting on the tops, brushing with milk and sprinkling a wee bit of sugar. You could never have sold them in a posh establishments as some bits of the pastry were thicker than others, some had more filling than others and some lids didn't fit exact, but none of that mattered, the fact was they all enjoyed doing this as a family activity and Santa always ate what was left out so they must have been good enough.

cutting out the pastry
We did this a few years back at Uncle S's request as he was feeling fed up at not having a job and he remembers enjoying it as a child, so we decided to cheer him up and a baking session was organised. We didn't involve Bob in this activity but myself, Auntie T, Uncle S and I made mince pies and home made pizza, and it was a messy but fun afternoon.
the finished mince pies




Our reindeer
I made some cakes yesterday for Fifi and Auntie T to decorate up as Rudolph copying an idea I saw somebody else post over on Facebook. Just a chocolate came with chocolate butter icing with 2 raisins for eyes, a craisin for his nose and some curly wurly for antlers









So carrying on this tradition we decided that Auntie T would bring Fifi and Bob round at 2.30 in time for me coming in from work and Fifi and Auntie T are going to make mince pies. Due to time constraints we are using Jus-rol ready rolled puff pastry.

stirring the crispie cakes

Now as we cant let Bob near this procedure as he cannot handle these type of products without making him ill, and as I don't think his mummy will be to pleased if we end up in A&E on Christmas Eve. So Bob and I are making Bob friendly top hats and chocolate crispie cakes.

I guess some never made it to the cases
the finished crispie cakes
watching the dvd
We also made pizza for Bib using a roll and cheezley cheese and tomato, and sat with pizza and juice, mince pie and chocolate crispie cake and watched  Muppets Christmas Carol before taking them back home so they can go visiting other relatives to pick up and drop off parcels. The two of them really didnt sit still for a second and Bob was whistling and clicking his fingers as he jigged about to the music, but what else do you expect from a 5 yr old on Christmas Eve?



The kids had a ball, they happily went home with stuff to leave out for Santa, gave them something to do to help pass a few hours for them, gave mummy a few hrs peace, and gave me a few hrs of fun, its just so nice to be able to do this sort of thing with them.

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