About Me

We moved out to Portugal to live a frugal but better , simpler and peaceful life, our house is a very basic, semi ruin, up in the hills outside Figueiro Dos Vinhos, where we work our land, enjoy life with each other and our dogs, and hope to make the smallest carbon footprint we can,

Monday 28 December 2009

Christmas our way...

Although we had a pretty busy run up to Xmas here, the event itself was very low key for us, as Ricky is a Pagan and doesnt do Christmas, we have a bit of a mix that we have developed over the years that suits us both. We generally have a party for Winter Solstice that starts of our festive season, we didnt this year as we were invited ut to friends plus the weather had been so wet and we generally hold it outdoors round a bonfire in the garden. I decorate the house with greenery and pine cones from the forest for him to make it festive but 'natural' too. No trees are hurt (by us) as I go and collect branches from where the latest logging has been happening, that way at least some of the beautiful trees are not wasted...
After Solstice I add a few home made decorations and some ribbons etc and it becomes my xmas decorations... this year I made xmas tree garlands by cutting tree shapes from old christmas cards and stringing them together... very pretty. Also my xmas tree (plastic) is decorated by loads of coloured celophane flowers made by me from sweet wrappers and strung on cotton... Rik thinks Im bonkers... but again, the wrapers do not bio degrade, so to save just throwing them away , ive recycled them in my own way, they really do look pretty and as they are silver in places really sparkle ... hehehehe well it works for me....
Christmas day is a very quiet day for us, we generally have a lie in untill the dogs cant wait any longer, about 8am at the best... then we light the range, make coffee and walk the dogs, this year Ricky went strimming down in the 'orchard to be' untill mid afternoon when lunch was ready, I prepared lunch and spent my time stacking and re organising the log shed.
For our lunch we had a nice shoulder of Lamb, roast potatoes, our roast turnips, our roast butternut squash, our peas, and our cauli. Gravy and a glass of wine. A fruit parcel with ice cream each and that was us done.... then we curled up in front of the roarin log burner and watched DVD'S till bed...
A nice peaceful day, no stress, no cost, wonderfull...