After finally winding down it feels like Christmas! It was such a busy fourth term and when the Christmas holidays started it just did not feel like Christmas to me but the last few days of this week things have started feeling Chistmassy.
A Quiet Christmas With Family
My parents arrived on Monday and my sister arrived on Wednesday. It is so fantastic to spend Christmas again as a family since last year we were in lockdown for Christmas making it impossible for us to spend time together.
We have been spending time together doing puzzles and going to the beach. It is going to be a quiet Christmas at home and we have not bought any gifts except for the kids. My focus this year is on homemade or repurposed gifts for family members.
I’m so grateful that I was gifted some amazing things from companies at the end of this year that have made fantastic gifts.
I received stunning headphones from Warner Media that are perfect for my mom – she struggles with the earphones that came with her phone and she can’t go without headphones when on a call due to her hearing.
The Nova Choc-Oh-Late hamper I received makes for great gifts for my vegan sister and my diabetic father. Nova Choc-Oh-Late is sugar free and gluten free so my dad can eat chocolate without concern for his diabetes. Some of the chocolates are vegan so I chose a few vegan options for her and she loves them.
I made my dad crunchies for Christmas, his favourite!
I used the growing paper gifts tags that I received in my Jam Packed Box from The Papery – they are made from seed recycled paper so they can be planted afterwards.
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African Secret Hamper
I was gifted another African Secret hamper this week and I am so in love! I received another Pain Relief aromatherapy and waterless Hand and Surface Sanitiser.
I also received the Tea Tree Oil Aromatherapy Blend and I am super stoked because I love tea tree oil. Growing up my mother always had tea tree oil on hand.
Tea tree oil is fantastic and can be used for so many things including being used as an antiseptic and antifungal treatment, insect bites, insect repellant, lice repellant and a treatment for nappy rash (however not before the age of 6 months).
Pure tea tree oil must be mixed with a carrier oil but this one is already a blend so it can be used as is.
You can get 25% off African Secret products using coupon code Kaboutjie25 until 30th December 2021.
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Nova Choc-Oh-Late
When my parents arrived I gave my dad the Roasted Cacao and Toasted Coconut chocolates from Nova Choc-Oh-Late. My dad is diabetic but has a huge love for chocolate, so this made him very happy. His feedback is that the chocolate tastes divine and is incredibly high quality. Now I know what to buy him for special treats in future.
Nova Choc-Oh-Late came in handy on the weekend when we made waffles, we love making our own waffles and having ice cream and chocolate sauce as a topping for waffles is a must in our home. Unfortunately the chocolate sauce was finished, so we made a plan with the milk chocolate baking buttons and made our own sauce.
SING 2
SING 2 is out in cinemas today and it is sure to be a fantastic movie! We loved SING and can’t wait to watch SING 2, featuring Bono. Make sure to enter the giveaway to win 1 of 2 SING 2 hampers for your kids – click here to enter.
Ysense Earnings Update
I’ve been sharing a lot about Ysense due to the huge amount of interest and the great success I’m having with it lately. Ysense is an online patform for earning money online through completing surveys and offers, playing games and referring people.
I have written a review on Ysense a while back and this week I wrote a new post sharing tips on how to increase your earnings with Ysense.
This past week I have reached a number of new milestones with Ysense:
- Over $1500 (approximately R23 000) in total earned from Ysense
- Being able to cash out $50 (approximately R760) two weeks in a row – last week Friday I cashed out $52 from Ysense to Payoneer during my live video and that was almost all my earnings emptied out, however this week Friday I cashed out $50 from Ysense to Paypal during my live video.
- I had my highest earning day of just over $10 (approximately R160)
- I’ve made just over $84 (approximately R1280) so far for December – making it my highest earning month ever with Ysense
My goals for December are to make over $100 in total for the month and to reach over 200 active referrals so that my referral commission hits 30% which is the highest referral commission you can make with Ysense.
I’m sure that the next few days are going to be really slow with Ysense since I am certainly not going to be sitting on my phone or laptop on Christmas trying to make money online and I’m sure the same goes for everyone else.
I wish you all a fantastic Christmas and will catch up with you all next week.
compliments of the season’s Lynne may your new year bring you lots of blessing an new adventures. I’m glad you got to spend it with your family .. I love the concept you used with gifts you got ,that is a really awesome idea.. you dad must slow down on the crunchies ..
We had a chilled Christmas.. woke up to load-shedding a frying pan that just gave up.. a gas tank that was empty we decided to have lunch by my partners parents .. i also thought of my dad when i saw your post about the crunchies.. he called me on christmas and asked where’s his food and dessert was, i told him i’ll make it up to him he wants me to make it up double with a bread pudding i dont know how to make it, if you have a recipe that would be great
Compliments of the season to you too Chantal – but I’m so sorry you had so much drama over Xmas! We haven’t had loadshedding for a while in our area which I am so grateful for! Bread pudding – I’ve never made it before but if I come across a good recipe I will share it for sure!
BREAD PUDDING
INGREDIENTS
12 slices day-old white bread
butter, softend
jar of apricot jam
4 cups milk
6 large eggs
1/4 cup sugar or less if you don’t like it too sweet (I eave it out as the jam and raisins are enough sweet for me)
1/2 cup raisins
1 tsp ground nutmeg
A tbs sugar for sprinkling over top before baking in the oven.
Method
Pre-heat oven to 350°.
Spread butter and the jam onto the bread.
Cut bread into quarters
Arrange quarters in a greased 9″ x 12″ baking dish and sprinkle raisins.
Lightly mix milk, eggs and sugar well. (custard)
Pour milk mixture over the quarters.
Sprinkle a bit of sugar on top.
Bake for around 30-40 minutes until the custard is set and looks golden brown.
Serve with dessert cream or vanilla ice-cream.
Fantastic Ingrid, thank you for sharing! I’ve never made bread pudding before 🙂
So blessed to spend time with family too. It was very special for this was the last year we all be together, for my sister is immigrating to Perth next year
So glad you also got to spend time with family this Christmas Ullrie – I wish your sister a smooth move overseas! Unfortunately one of my sisters is in UK and we haven’t seen her since the pandemic started but we were so lucky she came just before it hit. I can’t wait to see her again. We are hoping 2022 is kinder so we can see her.