Late Christmas preparations

I´ve been back home since Tuesday, but still out of sorts due to jet-lag! I seem to fall asleep as soon as I sit down on the sofa to watch some TV, wake up a few hours later...if I do go to bed early (a lot earlier than my usual time), I wake up at 4 or 5am which is certainly not my usual waking up time either.
Didn´t realize it would take so long to recover, I´m getting old...

This weekend I started on the Christmas preparations, because with my overseas trip and this jet-lag, everything is falling behind.
I covered the fruit mix for the Christmas cake in Port wine and tonight I will add the flour, sugar, eggs and nuts and bake it slowly for a few hours. The lovely recipe was from the now extinct "Notebook" magazine, I have been baking it for the past 2 years and it always turns out well.
The previous cake I had baked in November before going away wasn´t anything special, although easy to bake it was a bit dense with far too much fruit for my taste. Still, even though it wasn´t good it was all eaten!!.

I went into the garage to get the Christmas decorations, but this year I will just put a few baubles in glass vases, hang a few things on the walls, but won´t put up the Christmas tree.
The few Christmas cards I will post are ready to go out to Europe today, these are just for the few people I didn´t manage to see on my trip. Other friends will get the usual email message, not as personal I know, I always try to send out cards with a little letter telling friends about our year, but no time this year.

I made a test batch of ginger cookies, but left out most of the ginger as I´m not too fond of ginger and somehow they don´t taste of anything....I should have substituted with other spices.
I will have to bake some other cookies to package as Christmas presents.
As for more Christmas presents: I have home-made soaps, will still make a batch of laundry liquid...but have to get nice glass jars to package my offerings.

From what I read in other blogs everyone is miles ahead of me with their Christmas preparations. I have to get moving quickly!!
Hope you are all enjoying the lead up to Christmas and making the best of your time with your family and friends.