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Raisie Bay

Christmas

Cadburys Gifts You Don’t Want to Miss This Christmas

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I love Cadburys, I live not far from the Cadbury Factory and Cadbury World. I know they sold out to another company a few years ago, but I really hope the village of Bournville stays the same. I’ve put together some fabulous Cadburys gifts you don’t want to miss that are available this Christmas.

I am an affiliate for Cadburys so if you click through any of my links and purchase something I may earn a little money at no extra cost to you. Thank you for all of your support x

First A Competition

Cadburys are offering a Christmas Eve Box in their competition which you can enter up until December 17th 2021. All you have to do is tell them what day Christmas Eve falls on this year. Why don’t you have a go, it’s free to enter.

https://www.cadburygiftsdirect.co.uk/christmas-competition

Christmas Eve Box

If you want to buy a box and not wait to see if you are a competition winner you can do so in the Cadburys Gift Shop.

The Cadburys Christmas Eve Box costs £12 and includes:
2 x Cadbury Christmas Puds
1 x Cadbury Dairy Milk Tree Decoration Baubles Box 108g
1 x Cadbury Snowy Fingers Biscuit Box 115g
2 x Cadbury Instant Hot Chocolate Stick
1 x Cadbury Mini Snowballs Bag 80g
1 x Cadbury Selection Pack 89g includes 5 items: Fudge, Freddo, Buttons, Curly Wurly treatsize, Chomp Selection

Selection Boxes

Selection boxes are a great gift idea for gifts especially for kids (or big kids!) This pack is the giant Selection Box which is £15. There are others available from just £1.09.

fabulous giant selection box £15

  • 1 x Giant Selection Box measuring 43cm x 31.5cm x 2.5cm , which includes:
  • Cadbury Dairy Milk Caramel Bar 45g
  • Cadbury Dairy Milk Fruit & Nut Bar 49g
  • Cadbury Dairy Milk Whole Nut Bar 45g
  • Cadbury Dairy Milk Bar 45g
  • Cadbury Crunchie Bar 40g
  • Cadbury Boost Bar 48.5g
  • Cadbury Twirl Bar 43g
  • Cadbury Flake Bar 32g
  • Cadbury Curly Wurly Bar 21.5g
  • Cadbury Wispa Bar 36g
  • Cadbury Picnic Bar 48g
  • Cadbury Double Decker Bar 53.4g
  • Selection Pack 89g which includes a Treatsize Curly Wurly, Freddo Bar, Buttons, Fudge and Chomp

Hampers

A hamper is fabulous for Christmas, whether as a gift for one or a whole family. I’ve bought a big hamper for my ‘hospital family’ those that take care of me when I have my infusions. There is something for everyone but here are a few choices I’ve picked to show you.

£30 Christmas Hamper

Contents:

  • 1 x Cadbury Heroes Tub 600g
  • 1 x Cadbury Roses Tub 600g
  • 1 x Cadbury Christmas Freddo Selection Box 135g
  • 1 x Maynards Bassetts Wine Gums 400g Carton
  • 1 x Maynards Bassetts Jelly Babies 400g Carton
  • 1 x Cadbury Eclairs Carton 420g

Or You could go really special with this Ultimate Christmas hamper including the Wicker Basket for £70

Contents:

  • 1 x Chocolate Coloured Wicker Gift Hamper with double clasps
  • 1 x 800g Cadbury Roses Tub
  • 1 x 800g Cadbury Heroes Limited Edition Tin
  • 1 x 400g Cadbury Bournville Selection Box
  • 1 x Cadbury Stocking Selection Box 179g
  • 1 x 850g Dairy Milk Bar with Merry Christmas Cardboard Gift Sleeve
  • 1 x 430g Cadbury Retro Selection Box
  • 1 x 108g Cadbury Chocolate Christmas Decorations
  • 1 x 80g Cadbury Dairy Milk Mini Snowballs Bag

Alcoholic Gift Packs

For the grown ups there are some fabulous Alcohol and chocolate combination gifts. Here are a couple of my choices.

Cadburys Wine and Chocolate Hamper £50

  • 1 x Dark Brown Wicker 16″ Hamper Basket with single clasp
  • 1 x 16 Little Black Pigs Pinot Grigio 75cl
  • 1 x 16 Little Black Pigs Shiraz Cabernet 75cl
  • 1 x 420g Chocolate Eclairs Carton
  • 1 x 185g Heroes Carton
  • 1 x 290g Roses Carton
  • 1 x 180g Milk Tray Box
  • 1 x Cadbury Bournville Giant Buttons 110g Bag
  • 1 x 110g Dairy Milk Bar
  • Please Note: This gift contains alcohol and cannot be bought or delivered to any person under the age of 18.
  • Proudct dimensions 42cm x 33cm x 22cm

Wine and Choc Hamper £27 red or white wine

  • Cadbury Double Deck Selection box 498.8g (product dimensions) 250mm x 230mm x 65mm which includes:
  • 1 x Cadbury Milk Tray chocolate Box 78g
  • 1 x Cadbury Dairy Milk 45g
  • 1x Cadbury Dairy Milk with Caramel 45g
  • 1 x Cadbury Dairy Milk with Fruit and Nut 49g
  • 1 x Crunchie 40g
  • 1 x Twirl 43g
  • 1 x Flake 32g
  • 1 x Curly Wurly 21.5g
  • 1 x Wispa 36g
  • 1 x Boost 48.5g
  • 1 x Treatsize Cadbury Buttons bag 14.4g
  • 1 x Double Decker 54.5g
  • 1 x 75cl 11.5% 16 Little Black Pigs Pinot Grigio in a gift box.

Cadbury Bars and Beers Hamper £22

  • 1 x 200g Cadbury Dairy Milk Bar
  • 1 x 110g Cadbury Dairy Milk Fruit & Nut Bar
  • 1 x 200g Dairy Milk Caramel Bar
  • 1 x 120g Dairy Milk Whole Nut Bar
  • 1 x100g Bournville Dark Chocolate
  • 1 x 500ml St Peter’s Gatekeeper Golden Ale ABV. 4.7%
  • 1x 500ml St Peter’s Best Bitter ABV. 3.7%
  • 1 x 500ml Old Style Porter ABV 5.1%.
  • Product dimensions 265mm x 245mm x 95mm

Building Chocolate

Last year we made a Gingerbread Chocolate House from Cadburys and it was a lots of fun, and just as disastrous as our usual gingerbread houses. (We made it work though and it was so tasty.) This year Cadburys have added to their collection and as well as a house you can make a train, cottage or cabin

Cadburys Dairy Milk and Oreo Train Kit £10

There is so much more on offer on the Cadburys Gift Shop Website and delivery is quick, you can get it next day if you order before 4pm. I hope I’ve given you some inspiration to get you started.

My Sunday Snapshot – Christmas 1991

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This week I’m back with old photos. I was looking through an old box of snaps and found some Christmas photos from 1991. At that time I was a young Mum of two living in my first house with my husband of five years. The first photo is my Christmas tree, and an impressive house plant.

I put it in the corner behind the tree because, well you know, I had toddlers! I look back now and I realise it was mostly because my eldest could not leave anything alone and had he been able to reach the tree he would have most likely pulled it down on a daily basis. Who needs pets!

This next photo shows some of my Christmas decorations.

Two Christmas stockings hung above the fireplace, handmade wreaths courtesy of my Mum who loved to make things like this and if you look in the mirror you can see that my ceiling was full of Christmas decorations. I miss the whole house covered look, I really do. Even if it was a real pain to do.

Look at the fireguard. A necessity with toddlers and a gas fire. We didn’t have central heating back then, the fire was the only form of heat in the entire house! We’d put the cooker on to warm the kitchen, but the bedrooms just required lots of blankets. Fire guards were ugly, but they were a good way of drying the washing if you didn’t have a tumble dryer!

Here are the presents, so this must have been Christmas eve because I wouldn’t have put them out before then…Father Christmas had to bring them.

Look at all those lovely gifts, the kids did well that year. Look at my television, but try not to laugh. It was top of the range and we had a meter on the bag to put our £1 coins in to pay for it! If we didn’t put the money in we didn’t get to watch it. Hilariously, the guy who fitted it put the wrong wire and we had to pay for our VHS recorder so we could watch television as much as we wanted but had to pay if we wanted to watch videos. We still made the payment every month though because we had toddlers and there was no all day television back then. We would pop up to the video shop and rent the kids favourites, Thomas the Tank Engine and Sooty and Sweep Show.

Christmas 1991 Presents

I can’t show my kids playing with their presents because I don’t have their permission to feature them on my blog. But I know that these were the favourite two gifts and they had many, many hours of fund with them.

For my boy who was three years old, his favourite present was his Big Red Fun Bus

This big plastic buggy was my daughter’s favourite toy, along with a baby doll. She was 18 months old so it was a great walking aid too as she was still finding her feet.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my journey back to Christmas in 1991. What where you up to back then…my guess is that you were mostly like my children and enjoying your presents under the tree (or the television 🙂 )

Christmas Gift Guide From Etsy

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It’s that time of year when the Christmas ads have hit the television and we are all trying to say, hey it’s too early, while at the same time knowing that it really is time to start preparing. For those who make handmade goods to sell at Christmas they probably started months ago. I’m an affiliate for Etsy and I love to showcase some of the lovely items you can find there. I may earn some commission if you click through and purchase something, but it won’t cost you any extra. Thank you and I hope you find my Christmas Etsy gift guide useful.

You will find links to my Christmas gift guides for items on Etsy, I try to keep all my choices affordable.

Christmas Gifts for Her from Etsy

Here are just a few gifts that I have chosen for the females.

Pearl and Bead necklace £11.40

Pressed Flower necklace £16

Custom Family Portrait £49.36

Gin and Tonic Socks £12

Christmas Gifts for Him From Etsy

Here are my selection of gifts for him, although saying that, I know a special girl who would love the personalised guitar pick!

For more Christmas gift for Him from Etsy- check out my list here.

Secret Santa Gifts

I love a Secret Santa, here are some fun things I have found. You can see many more on my Etsy List Here.

Bee Socks £10.95

Pressed Flower Key Ring Trolley Coin £4

Gift Boxes for Her, Stocking Fillers £10.95

Secret Santa rude/funny mug £8.95

Christmas Gifts for Kids

Let’s not forget the little ones!

Christmas chocolate sweets gift boxes, personalised hamper for kids. From £4.99

personalised kids baking set with apron £8.95

personalised kids mason jars with straws £6

Personalised football night light £20

See more gifts for kids on my Etsy list.

If you are still stuck for choice then why not take a look at the Editors Picks from Etsy? Here are some of my favourites from The Christmas Shop.

Pink Gin Advent calendar, personalised £12.76

5 scented tea light candles £5.49

personalised Christmas Eve Box £26

sage green and natural wreath £12.50

My Etsy Halloween Guide

New Years Party 2020

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A New Years party is probably the last thing on a lot of people’s mind’s this year, especially with the Covid restrictions and not being able to see family and friends.

It doesn’t mean that you can’t celebrate though. We haven’t had a party for years now, but we still have our New Years Eve traditions. We have party food that we all enjoy. We put up a few extra party decorations and we play some fun games as a family.

Or you can use some fantastic New Years Eve Clipart to make some decorations.

Party Food

I’ve done all sorts of fancy stuff in the past including slow cooker pulled pork and Christmas Dinner Leftover Pie One year I even made a delicious Moroccan Spiced Pie.

We generally stick to easy to prepare food though, like mini pizzas, quiches, mini sausages, scotch eggs, spring rolls, sausage rolls, ham, salad and we always finish off with a nice cheese board with a load of crackers. I think we spend most of the evening just snacking away. We even have a couple of cakes and a tiramisu to devour. I doubt we’ll be able to move on New Years Day.

Party Fun

Just because we can’t have people around it doesn’t mean we can’t have fun. Board games are always a hit. We have Monopoly Cheaters edition which is a little quicker to play that normal, especially if you are good at cheating! Or we pull out on of the consoles and play Mario Party, or Mario Kart. This year we have Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 which is causing a lot of competitiveness.

Or we may put a movie on that we will all enjoy. When the kids were younger we used to watch one of the Cornetto Trilogy, Sean of the Dead, Hot Fuzz or The World’s End. But the kids stay up now so we choose something that everyone can watch like Star Wars or a Marvel film.

Staying Up!

We always stay up until midnight at least. We will then wish each other a Happy New Year and generally go out into the street to wish Happy New Year to the neighbourhood. Usually there are fireworks, but we don’t set them off. Where we used to live we could see the big display in the City Centre, but now we just have the neighbour’s firework shows. Even if we did go to bed early the noise would wake us up! We like to do the countdown to the New Year with Jools Holland and his Hootenanny.

Then it’s off to bed and hope that next year will be better.

What are your plans for New Years Eve This year, will you be having a party even if it’s your own household only?

A Very Christmas Post for 2020

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Christmas 2020 is a very different affair for most. We don’t have big family parties but I’ve missed Christmas shopping in actual shops and going out to see the Christmas lights. Last year we went to the local Christmas Lights Festival. We had a day making Christmas themed pottery We made a decorated a Christmas Cake. And I took my girls to see their first ever ballet, The Nutcracker. It all helped to make it a magical experience and gave me things to write about and record here on my blog.

Christmas 2020

We didn’t really have any plans for visitors or parties. We generally have a day when Graham’s brother and family pops up from Dorset and visit us along with Graham’s Mum. That didn’t happen this year. I generally spend some time with my brother and his family but that’s out too. We go to the cemetery to visit my family on Christmas Eve which we will probably still do, but we will miss the crib service we usually attend at the church. The kids are way too old but it’s such a lovely experience we still enjoy it. I’m not sure I’ll be able to persuade the kids next year.

This year we will be together for Christmas and that is all I can ask for. Everyone is currently well and I’m hoping it stays that way. Just a day of gifts, food and maybe even a little tipple for the adults. We will play with the kids with their new games both on the consoles and board games.

What I will Be Watching on TV

I probably won’t get much chance to watch television but I’ll definitely be recording some things.

I’ve been overdosing on Christmas movies for weeks now. It’s how I spend my mornings at the weekend. I’ve been watching all the TV movies which basically have the same storyline just tweaked a little. But it doesn’t matter, when you are up early at the weekend and have no plans. I’ve also watched some classics like The Gremlins, The Holiday, Miracle on 34th Street and of course Elf. Yesterday I found myself watching a Muppets Christmas Movie, oh is this what 2020 has done to me. Next I’ll be telling you I’ve watched Home Alone or even White Christmas. I still haven’t watched Last Christmas but it’s on my list.

Over Christmas I guess we’ll be enjoying the fun Christmas message from Eastenders. I don’t know why I watch that soap, it’s always dismal. But on Christmas day there is a real treat I’ll probably have to record to watch in peace, it’s Matthew Bourne’s Red Shoes on BBC2 6pm. I saw it live in February (which seems like a lifetime ago but was actually my very last day out!)

Other programs I don’t want to miss are Roald and Beatrix, The Tale of the Curious Mouse (Christmas Eve 8.25pm Sky TV) This looks really fabulous. I will also be watching The Repair Shop at Christmas (Boxing Day 6.45pm BBC) I love the Repair Shop, it looks like such a magical place and the work they do is amazing. I’ll be watching Ghosts Christmas Special (23rd December 8.30pm BBC1) I loved the two series so far, silly fun. I have to wait until New Year for Doctor Who and Taskmaster Christmas specials. But they are on my list.

What will you be doing this Christmas? Whatever you do, stay safe and remember to give that relative a call that may be feeling lonely.

Merry Christmas x