The Spirit of Christmas

So that was Christmas, Mine was spent playing with kittens and wrapping paper - hours of fun! With mum and dad coming to visit, Christmas was a team effort (but mum did the majority of the cooking even though I tried....) I was responsible for pouring the wine and making the table look festive - I went for the shabby look this year with a spare branch from the Christmas tree!

It was a bumper present year, I got some fabulous presents I thought I'd share a few ....

I'm very impressed with my new handbag by Francesco Biasia - yes it is a handbag and not an overnight bag. With busy days in Manchester I always seem to have about 3 handbags on the go - this one is actually big enough to fit in my laptop, water bottle, diary, make-up and general clutter - with lots of compartments to keep everything organised and a nice strong shoulder strap to boot - well done Gordon!

Talking of water bottles... they're something of a on-going rant of mine. I drink a lot of water through the course of the day and hate to buy bottled water all the time so just usually re-use an old bottle and re-fill from my Brita jug. Now this isn't supposed to be particularly good for you, or for the environment so we've been hunting for the prefect re-useable water bottle for some time. I managed to track one down here at All Things Green. I liked it because it is clear and lightweight - a lot are sport water bottles made from aluminium. So Gordon got one in his stocking with an extra one for me!

And continuing with the green and re-usable theme we also bought each other the same present...I Am Not A Paper Cup is a great ceramic mug designed to keep your coffee warm and offers a great alternative to the cheap plastic coffee cups we've been using for our morning car coffee. I can actually see me becoming quite attached to these but it will be interesting to see whether Starbucks or Nero's would fill your own cup instead of using their own branded paper ones....

Drinking vessels were definitely the theme of Christmas with these lovely hand-made mugs and re-cycled wine glasses from friends and family in Garstang - there's lots of gorgeous art and gift shops in Garstang selling hand-crafted gifts. The glasses have been made from re-cycled wine bottles - from Greenglass - a perfect accompaniment to my organic wine (better than Ikea wine glasses anyday!) The mugs have been hand-made and hand-painted by Jenny Bell Ceramics - the colours of the cats on the mugs are the same as the kittens

so will be a lovely keepsake when they leave us (boo hoo).

And one present Gordon bought me actually brought a tear to my eye on Christmas Day. Youdoo Dolls are a way to create your own pet - Gordon created me a double sided kitten souvenir pet - with a photograph of each of the kittens.

I'm going to miss the kittens terribly when they go and I wish so much we could keep them. But as they are growing up and starting to become more active it's becoming more apparent kittens are not suitable for a household like ours - they require lots of love and attention, playtime and now as they are starting to get a little bit bigger, food at regular intervals! I think it will be a good few weeks before they are completely weaned - so until they go to their forever homes our lives contain a kitten rota so they have company every day!

This allows us to spend some time away from the studio, designing new season and working on the website so it's quite good timing. Hopefully it will give me chance to have a bit of rest and relaxation on the days I don't have to get the train to Manchester (which I'm not looking forward to...) I'm looking forward to the day when I wake up and I don't still feel sick, tired and emotional, the last few weeks of 2009 have been a real drag and I'm looking forward to 2010 - unbelievably the start of a whole new decade!