The Hazel Pear Inn

It's been a Christmas tradition for as long as I can remember that every Christmas Eve my Dad goes out for lunch with all his friends and the lads from work. Each year my mum and I would be at a loss for something to do while he was out, going from chilling in front of the television to frantically wrapping presents to doing a spot of last minute shopping. He'd come home full of tales of delicious food, so last year Mum and I decided to start our own Christmas tradition and go out for our own girly Christmas Eve meal.

Mince Pies

After blogging something a bit different yesterday with my take on an Alternative Christmas Pudding, today I'm going with something traditional: the humble mince pie. Shops have been flooded with them for what feels like months, and with so many different brands on offer picking the right one can be an absolute minefield. According to my family it takes a lot to beat Morrisons' lattice-topped or Marks and Spencer's deep-filled-all-butter, but a homemade mince pie is incomparable.

Alternative Christmas Pudding

Christmas is my favourite time of the year. 

I hope I never stop getting excited by fairy lights, advent calendars and decorating the tree. I can watch Elf, Love Actually and The Santa Clause millions of times and still laugh at every joke even though I know what's coming, and I relish taking a highlighter to the TV guide to plan a suitable television schedule for the holiday period. I eagerly anticipate the arrival of Starbucks' famous red cups and take a photo of the Christmas tree in Covent Garden every time I walk past it, the novelty of seeing it clearly showing no signs of wearing off. You can't talk about Christmas without mentioning the food. Every family I know seems to stock up on nibbles and mince pies and Quality Street in December as if we're heading towards an apocalypse. It's a universally accepted fact that for the few days of Christmas all sense of calorie counting and being good goes totally out of the window, and there's nothing more dangerous to healthy eating than a spot of Christmas baking. 

Since I've been home the oven has been working over time. I started today with a recipe from everyone's favourite supermarket (and general life-saver) Marks and Spencer. It's on their website as a Special Christmas Brownie, but it turned out as more of a dessert so I think it would be the perfect alternative to Christmas Pudding, if you're not really a fan and also a bit of a chocoholic.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

British Library Christmas Market

At the moment, I feel like I live in the British Library. I'm there at least every other day and have become weirdly possessive over a particular desk in my favourite reading room.