We’re at the part of December when I start to panic about Christmas. It’s at this point, that everyone I know has put up their trees and decorations and Christmas cards have started to arrive, everyone is having Christmas parties and I’m not at all ready and I’ve overcommitted and I’m beginning to feel completely overwhelmed.

This weekend, when that ‘oh God, I’m never going to have it all together for Christmas’ feeling crept up, I remembered that I’m not doing Christmas Day this year. So that makes life a little easier, that I’m not working after the 19 December so if necessary I can pull it all together the weekend before Christmas, which is what usually happens.There are some things I can do though, that will reduce my feelings of panic and set me up for success this Christmas. I started by making mincemeat this week,

The most time consuming bit of making mincemeat is chopping the apples.Once that’s done, you mix everything together and leave it overnight, then bake for three hours, allow to cool and jar. I do it over three nights so it’s pretty simple. The recipe is here, but I thought that I’d add some photos because it looks awful before it looks good and if you’ve never made it before, it might help!