Getting the Christmas tree is something I look forward to every year- it feels like such a wholesome and festive activity. I don’t often make posts in the ‘Away From Home’ category (largely because I am rarely actually away from home), so it’s super weird that I’ve posted two in the past week. I swear, I’m still very much a homebody!

Anyway, I took some photos from our trip to get the Christmas tree and I thought it would be fun to share them here. Let’s get a tree, shall we?

The place where we’ve been getting our tree for the past few years is actually a café/farm shop, so, of course, we went early and had breakfast before we so much as looked at a single tree. What can I say? We have our priorities in order. I had this breakfast bap- with sausages and a hash brown, which I had for the first time last Christmas and have dreamt about since. Can confirm, it was as good as I remembered. The addition of a hash brown continues to be life-changing.

Next we went into the farm shop, which was decorated very festively and had lots of seasonal snacks on offer. I was, however, talked down from buying a large quantity of goose fat- this was fair enough (it was rather expensive), but I, with my love for super crispy (practically fried) roast potatoes, took it pretty hard.

Finally! We get to the trees! Unfortunately… they were all a little… strange? It was a pretty limited selection and none of them were quite what we were looking for.

Also, this one had a full-on pile of feathers beneath it? I couldn’t take a good picture because I was trying to be ✨surreptitious✨, so as not draw attention to a potential pigeon massacre, but there were a lot of feathers, right under the tree??? I was disturbed.

We had to give up on the first place, so we headed to a little farm we had seen on the way. It had a much better selection! We found one we liked almost immediately.

The farm also had a bunch of animals around- this sheep was called Bruno. He seemed to take a liking to me and I was OVERJOYED, but then I realised he was just interested in the lingering smell of sausage and hash brown bap on my fingers. It was very humbling.

There was also a very waggy dog, who had somehow made his way up to eye level, among the tree tops. He seemed happy to be there, though. Easier to survey his domain from the higher vantage point, I guess.

This donkey was staring at the wall like this for a while, which made me chuckle because our old dog used to do exactly the same thing. Apparently one of the donkeys (maybe this one?) will be starring in a school nativity this year, so perhaps he was practising his freeze frames.

After we picked up our tree, we stopped in at (yet another) farm shop on the way home. I didn’t get him, but I thought this little reindeer was very funny.

And that was our tree-buying experience this year! It was much more involved than usual, where we typically go to one place and find a tree within 10 minutes, but it was all the more memorable for it. Also, if we had found a tree we liked at the first place, we never would have met Bruno the sheep! Sometimes life just works out.

I’ll see you tomorrow for Day 7 of Blogmas At Home! Stay merry!

Gemma

xxx

Contrary to what the name of this blog suggests, I have (on occasion) been known to leave my house and venture out into the Real World. Shock! Horror! Surprise! Few things can entice me to do this, but an evening filled with Christmas lights, hot drinks and even toasted marshmallows (!) is definitely one of them. Enter: Christmas at Stourhead, a Christmas light trail at a National Trust property in Wiltshire (coincidentally: the setting of Mr Darcy’s first (ill-fated) proposal to Elizabeth in the 2007 version of Pride and Prejudice! This, obviously, was the main reason I both found out about Christmas at Stourhead and decided to go). The following photo is my desperate attempt to get a photo of the Temple of Apollo, which is where the scene was filmed!

Yeah… the darkness may have been conducive to a light trail, but it was not so good for getting me my fangirl’s photo of the far-away temple (note: much to my disappointment, this was the closest the trail got you to the temple).

Anyway, today, I thought I would share some pictures from our trip! We went at the end of November, just as the trail was opening, and booked an early-ish slot (5pm), in the hopes that it would be relatively quiet. We were right! While there were still a good few groups walking the trail, there was no queue to enter. The trail was also quite spread out, so we very rarely felt like we were being shepherded along.

The lights themselves were beautiful! My favourite was the Tunnel of Light (pictured above). Each of the lights was a tiny flower up close!

Aren’t they pretty?! The trail was split up into sections, with a different light display in each one. There was a lot of red light, which did, admittedly, feel a bit ominous in some places, but looked stunning in others, such as this hanging poppy showcase:

Even the trees had been illuminated for the occasion- these stars were a particular highlight for me!

Coincidentally, these stars were found just after the marshmallow toasting station, which was another highlight of the trail. You purchase a marshmallow on a stick (it does cost extra, but it really was worth it), which you then take to one of the fire pits to toast. Super delicious! This could get a bit messy though, particularly if you have children- you might want to pack some wipes, just in case! Unfortunately, the only picture I have of said marshmallows also features me, doing an extremely accurate impression of a T-Rex devouring its prey. I will, of course, not be sharing that!

Marshmallows were not the only snacks you could pick up around the trail- there were plenty of kiosks and stalls selling snacks, hot drinks and meals. This stall was by far the coziest, prettiest one of all- it sold a variety of hot and alcoholic drinks. I think it was called The Box. Both the mulled wine and the hot chocolate were delicious: lovely and warming to sip as you walked around the trail. A quick side note: there are multiple kiosks selling hot chocolate throughout the trail- this one is a good bit of the way around! If you can hold out, I definitely recommend waiting to buy your hot chocolate here. It sells Hotel Chocolat hot chocolate for £4, whereas the other kiosks all seemed to sell Cadbury’s instant stuff for the same price!

This final picture shows one of the later instalments of the trail, which I thought was so original and unusual that I just had to show you!

Isn’t it cool?

Anyway, that was my trip to Christmas at Stourhead 2022. I have to say, I really loved it! I’m so glad I ventured out of my house for it, as it was a lovely, christmassy experience. Have you ever been? Or have you been to a different Christmas light trail? Let me know!

Gemma

xxx