Christmas

Christmas at Legoland Windsor!

Published

4 months ago

December 4, 2020

While we won’t see many of the usual Christmas events in the UK, Legoland in Windsor reopens after the lockdown in a totally Christmassy version.

The famous Legoland park near Windsor has new attractions and recreated a vast area with lights and lots of snow. There is also a live show with singing and dancing. There will also be traditional Christmas pantomimes and Christmas carols.

As it’s Legoland there will be lots of giant LEGO models. For the festive period there are special ones including Santa Claus and a spectacular dragon-shaped Christmas tree made with 150,000 LEGO bricks.

Here you can find 6% discounted tickets if you use the code TIQXMAS6 before checking out. To respect social distancing measure you will have to buy a ticket online.

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Christmas

Twelfth night cake – the recipe

Published

4 months ago

December 29, 2020

Cheryl Marshall-Sheppard

Twelfth Night cake celebrated the last day of the festive season on 5 January when there were great feasts, of which cake was an essential part.The punch called wassail was also a main feature of the feast on Twelfth Night and although enjoyed throughout Christmas time, door-to-door wassailing (similar to singing Christmas carols) commanded ‘figgy pudding’ ( or 12th night cake) and hot punch. It is considered unlucky to leave Christmas decorations hanging after Twelfth Night So the home should be cleaned and cleared ready for the Epiphany on 6th January which marks the day when the nativity story tells us that the wise men visited the infant Jesus.

Baked inside the cake were a dried bean and pea, one in one half and the other. Not to be confused with a standard Christmas cake, this cake had a quirky significance attached to it. Baked inside the cake were a dried bean and pea, one in one half and the other in the second half. As visitors arrived to the feast they were given a slice of cake, ladies from the left and gentleman from the right. Whoever found the bean became King of the Revels for the night and the Queen was found with the pea, gaining power to instruct all to their heart’s content. the second half.

Ingredients

Butter – softened to room temperature 200g
Dark muscovado sugar 200g
Plain flour200g
Eggs – 4x beaten
Ground almond 50g
Sherry, sweet or dry 100ml
Candied peel, roughly chopped 85g
Glacé cherries – roughly chopped 85g
Raisins 250g
Currants 250g
Lemon zest from 1 lemon finely grated
Mixed spice1½ tsp
Ground cinnamon 1 tsp
Ground nutmeg ½ tsp
½ tsp ground ginger
2 tsp vanilla extract
Icing of your choice: pre-made royal or buttercream
½ tsp baking powder
Dried bean and a dried pea

Method

Heat oven to 160C/fan 140C/gas
Line the base and sides of a 20 cm round, 7.5 cm deep cake tin.
Beat the butter and sugar with an electric hand mixer for 1-2 mins until very creamy and pale in colour, scraping down the sides of the bowl half way through.
Stir in a spoonful of the flour, then stir in the beaten egg and the rest of the flour alternately, a quarter at a time, beating well each time with a wooden spoon. Stir in the almonds.
Mix in the sherry (the mix will look curdled), then add the peel, cherries, raisins, cherries, lemon zest, spices and vanilla. Beat together to mix, then stir in the baking powder.
Don’t forget to add in your dried bean and pea!
Spoon mixture into the tin and smooth the top, making a slight dip in the centre.
Bake for 30 mins, then lower temperature to 150C/fan 130C/gas 2 and bake a further 2-2¼ hours, until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
Leave to cool in the tin, then take out of the tin and peel off the lining paper.
When completely cold, wrap well in cling film and foil to store until ready to decorate. The cake will keep for several months
I like to decorate with simple icing and a crown for the king tower but it is all a matter of personal choice.

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Christmas

Dog in Scotland eats Christmas dinner

Published

4 months ago

December 28, 2020

Laura S Hamlin

Curious news from Scotland, a chi apso dog, a breed of Tibetan dogs named Bubba, has eaten the whole turkey that was to be eaten at Christmas by the family.

Bubba walked into the kitchen on Christmas Eve and quietly ate the bird, which had been wrapped in tinfoil and left under a tea towel on the counter.

The dog then collapsed to the ground, unable to move after such a large meal. # A photo of Bubba lying on his side has been shared thousands of times on social media.

The photograph was posted on Twitter by owner David Barrett, who lives in Prestwick, Scotland and hasn’t eaten turkey this Christmas. Bubba might not eat one ever again though.

there's the culprit she can't move pic.twitter.com/BDsMlYT2UW
— Davyyyy (@David_Barrett5) December 24, 2016

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Christmas

Christmas Crackers – do you love them or hate them?

Published

4 months ago

December 24, 2020

Carole Ford

I think most people would agree that they make a great table decoration, that immediately spells party time. They are also good when placed as decorations on Christmas trees. As far as I am concerned that it is all I can find to say on the plus side for Christmas Crackers.

This does not come from a spirit of Bar Humbug, because I can get as Christmassy as anyone. I promise that I am not a Grinch. What is it then that provokes this strong reaction?

Well first of all it is the bang. The clue is in the word cracker, an onomatopoeic word representing the sound. I don’t like bangs, so of course, I’m not that keen on balloons either.

However, the main purpose of balloons is not to pop, in fact the opposite, and they usually deflate slowly without any sharp sound occurring.

Secondly the presence of a cracker at the dining table means that you are required to be an active participant in the production of the bang and laugh when it happens!

Even worse, if there is a chain, you are required to pull two crackers at once, one on each side of you.

Thirdly when the cracker is pulled, (and probably the worst consequence, in my opinion), is the obligatory wearing of the paper hat.

Everyone else either enjoys this or they are excellent actors, pretending that they don’t mind looking ridiculous.

Missing out on gaining the contents of the cracker and being left with the empty wrapper (a humiliation in itself), does not guarantee that you escape wearing the hat. Some kind soul will donate one, leaving you with no option, but to slide the paper monstrosity onto your head.

Who then is the inventor of my misfortune? He was a gentleman called Tom Smith (1823 – 1869), who invented the cracker in 1847. Originally it was an innocuous little bonbon wrapper, designed to boost the marketing of his sweets.

There was a little twist at each end, similar to the way Quality Street are sold today. Gradually bells and whistles were literally added and the wrappings became larger. To make things go with a bang, little sticks laced with a chemical, silver fulminate, which discharged against an abrasive surface, were added, and protruded from each end of the wrapping.

The original sweet had long been dispensed with, as Tom and his sons became producers of this developed product, sold as Cosaque, French for Cossack, a reference to the habit of cracking riding whips. Not surprisingly, the name did not catch on and was soon replaced with Crackers.

By 1899 Tom Smith crackers had grown into a large family business and continued to trade until 1953, when it merged with another firm. A monumental fountain to Tom was erected in Finsbury Square in that year, by Tom’s sons Thomas and Walter dedicated to their mother Martha Smith, where it stands today.

We can imagine that Martha would have proudly laid her Christmas Dining Table with the crackers, produced by her husband and sons. Clearly many people across the world do love crackers. Are you one of them? Whether you do or not, I wish you a cracking Christmas.

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