Christmas is coming!

It's 4 weeks to Christmas today - hasn't it come around quickly!

Rob surprised me by coming to visit me for the weekend last weekend which was such a lovely surprise.  We went to the Christmas market in Sheffield which was very nice and festive and we ate roasted chestnuts and drank mulled wine.

At work we have been discussing when we are putting up our Christmas Trees - most of us agreed that this Sunday is the correct time but one of my friends wanted to put up his tree last weekend and had to be persuaded not to by his housemates.

I'm putting my tree up on Sunday and I can't wait.  My Christmas shopping is going ok so far - mostly at the planning stage but looking manageable.

The swap group I am in on Ravelry has been having a Christmas swap too - we got randomly paired with a swap partner and given a list of items we should make/ buy for them.  I've posted my parcel now and already received mine from my partner (but not yet opened it).  It's lovely to make new friends in the swap group and send each other Christmas gifts!

Halloween Pumpkin Carving

This year for Halloween we went to a friend's house to do pumpkin carving.  He has a garden so we were all able to sit outside and be messy.

I've only done pumpkin carving once before but naturally I had big ambitions.

The 8 of us all sat in the living room drawing out our creations then set out into the garden to get carving

A while later we were all ready to reveal our creations:

And of course to light them:

My pumpkin all lit up

The creations of my 2 closest graduate friends

All of the pumpkins together

They look good all lit up

I really enjoyed the pumpkin carving - more than I thought I would and I've been promised some of the pumpkin seeds once they have been roasted.