It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas...

Now I need to qualify that heading.

1) I am not, repeat, NOT one of those women who make their own Christmas cards/decorations/table arrangements/tree ornaments.

2) I do however make presents - generally hampers for family members and little bundles for others. These can include a range of things I've made - cakes, tarts, relishes, jams, shortbread, gingerbread etc. Some people say this is a cheapskate option, but having spent a staggering over $500 on groceries this week, and the only difference to other fortnightly/monthly shops was the inclusion of items for Christmas goodie baking, I would argue with that statement quite adamently.

3) The ONLY reason it feels like Christmas to me now (as opposed to my standard practice of doing everything, including making the Christmas Pudding (that should hang at least for a few weeks, but I argue in Sydney's humidity that's just a recipe for disaster) and buying presents for the kids, on Christmas Eve, or if I'm really organised, Christmas Eve eve) is because I'm not working fulltime and being a mother and being a domestic slave and being a wife all at once. I'm solely doing the mother thing at the moment and well, there's only one at home and he's not mobile yet, and the other two, when they are home seem less intent on destroying the house or engaging in physically dangerous activities than they used to, so I have time to do things like bake, and plan and well, stuff.

4) So, behold, the dry ingredients for my Christmas cakes. This year there will probably be 18 small ones produced, one large one and one middle sized one. That's the plan. Check in at Eat Me to see how it progresses.

BUT!

Before Christmas comes Thanksgiving. And while it so isn't an Australian tradition on any level, I have American friends. Some would say I was that shallow that I actively sought friendship with Americans for the chance to listen to an accent that makes my knees wobble a little, eat foods laden with saturated fat and tap into an unending source of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, but they are actually really nice people who have sense of humour and get irony, satire and that just because their homeland is the most powerful country in the world it doesn't mean they should have all the power.

So, tomorrow, some dear friends of our, the Doyles - who we went camping with - are having a Thanksgiving Dinner, for which I am baking.up.a.storm. Visit Eat Me to check it out. I'll be posting recipes and pics there today as the baking progresses. There will be pecan pies, cheesecake and apple pies...