Ah, December. Such ripe opportunity for creative indulgence, which, by December 24th, will increasingly feel like creative purgatory. Or as I’ve heard it said, ‘death by Pinterest’. For me, it started in November with a secret source of winter berries. Secret not only to deter potential resource competitors from my more local readership, but also due to the questionable morality of pillaging naturally-growing foliage in the city. These berries provided an early flourish of winter on my dining table, and continued to feature on mantelpiece, wreath and table piece alike throughout the month.

My wreath was assembled during a ladies gathering over cocktails and crafts in early December. This provided a fuel-injection of festive cheer at an early point, but had the unfortunate disadvantage of resulting in a dead wreath by mid-advent. Not to mention the tree, which by Christmas day required a wide cordon lest a carpet of needles obscured entirely the unopened presents beneath, rendering the tree itself a skeletal impression of its former self. On a positive note, I abandoned the 1000 outdoor LED lights from last year, making this year’s decorated tree infinitely more pleasurable to share a living room with.

We mooted the idea of having our first Edinburgh Christmas this year, which was consolidated when duty called at work. Since 1999 we have been making the annual pilgrimage by boat to the homeland to celebrate the festivities in our family home(s) of origin. Hosting family here afforded me the luxury of additional creative extravagances. Of particular pleasure was decorating the dinner table. There is no greater decadence than crisply folded linens, place names, candelabras, centrepieces, table runners, all of which, as it happens, featured on our tableau.

Even Malcolm could not escape the creativity and volunteered to assemble the handmade cracker kit from Waitrose. No one actually likes any of the plastic nonsense that emerges, usually dangerously, from a cracker so it was good to do away with that part of proceedings and move directly to jokes and silly paper hats.

Christmas wouldn’t be complete without dietary indulgence. My chicken liver pate was an unexpected success. One does not expect such gloopy organs to transform into a pleasant appetiser, but such was the case. Or maybe it was just the champagne cocktails we were washing it down with…. There were other homespun elements to our Christmas, but in the end I failed to document them pictorially. Illustrated wrapping paper, some sewn gifts and a few last minute handmade cards were distributed.

January, with its depressing weather and in my case full time working, may diminish creative opportunities somewhat. Seville orange marmalade will certainly feature, but I’m not hopeful about any additional blog-able activities. See you in February!