Christmas

Hellooo and welcome back! 

If you have popped over during the holidays you will have noticed that I took a wee break over the last couple of weeks but it's good to be back now!

So, how about a look at our Christmas?

Like I said in my last post, the week or two before Christmas were a bit crazy with special things on. There were parties, pantos and Carol Concerts. 

The primary school had their rather lovely Carol service in the famous Greyfriars Kirk.

Now, a spot of trivia for you, does anyone (not Scottish!) know why the kirk is famous? Actually there are two reasons, but here is a clue to one of them.

The high school concert took place in Edinburgh's Usher Hall, a quite grand setting for a fabulous concert. 

The day before the big concert, James (who was singing in it with both the Gaelic and the English choirs) tripped on his way up to school and landed face first on the pavement, almost breaking his nose and cutting all of his mouth on his braces! He had a lovely swollen, bruised nose and black eye for the concert!

My mum had come down for a week and she was able to come along and see all the boys in their various concerts. We just had to go for afternoon tea on one of the days she was down :0)

I do love all the run up to Christmas as much as the actual day itself. Although it can be quite exhausting.

 In a way, my favourite day of all is Christmas Eve. It's so full of anticipation!

On Christmas Eve we get most of our food prep done so that I don't need to spend all of Christmas Day in the kitchen.

Every year we have chocolate log as one of our Christmas Day desserts. (Recipe here.) Calum made a little robin out of sugarpaste to decorate it.

James once again took on the task of decorating the Christmas Cake. His little family of penguins seem to be the penguin version of ours. Even complete with a little rascal splatting one of his brothers with a snowball!

For a couple of days before Christmas little Alasdair hadn't been so well, with a temperature, cough and runny nose. He was excited to open up all the presents but he didn't really play with them properly until a couple of days later. Since he wasn't feeling great, he spent most of the day clinging to me so I don't have as many photos of the present opening as I would usually have.

This was my main present from my beloved. Doesn't he have great taste? The boys all claim to have had a hand in choosing it too.

One of my favourite parts of Christmas Day is, of course, the food!

I made a smoked salmon pate for starter, which we ate with various oatcakes and crackers.

It wouldn't have been Christmas without the turkey, now would it?

Accompanied by (gluten free) sausagemeat & apple stuffing balls, (gluten free) chipolata sausages...

.....potatoes roasted in goose fat (a la Nigella)...

...as well as various winter veggies, gravy, cranberry sauce and bread sauce.

We ate well, and we were thankful for much.

Post-Christmas Dinner we tend to play games like charades and have some silly fun.

This is our group photo, my parents in law, sister in law and all of us.

So there we have it. A rather lengthy post, but then I have been offline for over two weeks, and I still haven't started on how we celebrated Hogmanay!

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King David's Tower

King David is one of my favourite Biblical characters.

Did you know, though, that there was a  King David of Scotland? Two actually.

You have to go back to the 14th century to find David II, son of Robert the Bruce, but there is still a part of a tower built in his time remaining at the castle.

The previous time we had visited the castle, our David was nearly 2 and I got these photos of him next to the sign.

On Monday night, I though it would be sweet to see how he looked in the same place, now aged 5.

My own little King David.

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An Evening in the Great Hall of the Castle!

Oh, and what an excellent evening it was too.

Quite a few months back, September I think!, I briefly mentioned the really cool project that James' class were involved in at Edinburgh Castle.

In collaboration with Historic Scotland, they were to be Gaelic Junior Tour Guides for the castle, and film an educational DVD that will be shown to visiting groups for many years to come.

Once a week, for quite a few weeks they walked up to the castle (about a 15 minute walk from the school) to learn about the history of the Great Hall. They were then involved in writing the script for the DVD before filming it, wearing specially made costumes.

Last night there was a special reception held for parents and other invited guests to celebrate the launch of the DVD and the children's 'graduation' as the Edinburgh Castle Junior Tour Guides.

So, time for a few photos of the evening, some of which were taken by Calum.

The outside of the great hall, built exactly 500 years ago by King James IV.

Inside the hall. 

The tables are only there for the children's play. In the middle, closest to the fire are James and his wife, the English Margaret.

I don't have the photos to show this, but on the side of the hall where the King sat, all the stone carvings and stained glass related to his family. On the Queen's side they related to hers.

Some courtiers.

My favourite courtier.

The graduation photo.

My favourite courtier with his two friends, the King's servant and the shipbuilder who built the roof.

Yes, that's right, shipbuilder. Roof.

 James loved his fleet of ships so much he wanted the roof of the hall to look like an upturned boat. And it does. My photo of that is stuck on my phone, but another day I'll show it. It's quite an amazing roof.

It was after 8pm when we were leaving, and such a beautiful evening.

The castle gives such amazing views over all of Edinburgh.

Remember my post a couple of weeks ago about our child-free meal in a posh hotel? I ended with a shot of Edinburgh and mentioned the Balmoral hotel. Straight ahead, in the middle of this photo is that same hotel, from a different direction.

At the bottom of this photo is Princes' Street Gardens.

I should rename my blog, Kirsteen's Scottish History & Tourism Blog!

It has been such a great opportunity for them to be involved in this and definitely the kind of experience that they will remember for many years.

Oh, and a report of the evening and project can be found on Historic Scotland's site, here.

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