A festive feeling in the air

Yay, we have a Christmas tree at last! I've been looking forward to decorating all year because last year we were in the middle of painting inside the house so there was no room for decorations. Which to me felt very strange, having grown up in a house that was decorated in every room for the festive season. 

So anyway, I bought the tree a couple of years ago on sale. I would love to have a real tree but just don't think I can be bothered with cleaning up the needles afterwards.

I'm not very crafty so I've bought most of the decorations and Mum has given me some too. The first year I put the tree up I went for a red/green/silver theme but now it's a bit more colourful. There's a couple of kiwi decorations in the mix, and a bauble to celebrate mine & hubby's first Christmas together, Pepper's first Christmas and now Morgan's first Christmas! I've also added the tags from the Kmart Wishing Tree as a reminder of the people I've bought gifts for. Mum started me on the habit of buying for the tree years ago and I love putting little gifts together.

I've also jumped on the Peppermint Bark bandwagon but with different results to MNM's, Paisley Jade & Nay's Place! Despite the fact that I've melted chocolate before and despite the fact that it's a basic cooking skill, I still managed to burn the chocolate. Twice. Using two different methods!! I started with melting dark chocolate in a bowl in a sink of boiling water but it was taking too long so I microwaved it. And it burnt. Then second attempt I melted it in a saucepan on the stove and it turned out perfect. So then I started to melt milk chocolate on the stove and this time it burnt!! I had no chocolate left so went out to buy more and this time had the gas on the stove so low you could barely see the flame and it worked fine. Crazy!! The end result was delicious, despite the white chocolate melting the dark chocolate when I poured it on top so it kind of came out with a marbled look!

 Might have to make some more this week for Christmas pressies! But for now I'm going to sit back, relax and sing along to Carols in the Domain!