Celebrations during lockdown

Hey everyone!

As I'm sure you have also been experiencing, so many people have had birthdays or reasons to celebrate during this lockdown period and it has been rather tricky to navigate. We can only gift the people celebrating with chocolates or biscuits as gifts, as anything other than food isn't on sale and obviously we cannot make any contact with that person. But it has been fun to think out of the box and come up with new and interesting ideas to make that person feel special. 

Easter

Luckily this occasion lent itself quite well to our buying restrictions as all we needed was chocolate and lamb! We bought our chocolate bunnies and eggs and hid them in a cupboard to make sure my sister couldn't eat them before the 12th of April. It is tradition in my family, as in most families, for my parents to hide the eggs before we get up so we can go searching for our treats. This year, my sister and I wanted to spice things up so we hid the eggs and made our parents find them. I think it was actually more entertaining for us to watch my parents search than us do the hard work. One of our neighbours, Andrea, who owns The Red Kitchen, had extra biscuits and very kindly gifted them to a few lucky households in our street. They were delicious and the perfect touch to our afternoon tea!

My dad's birthday

Unfortunately, all we had to give my dad on his birthday was a voucher that we had bought before the lockdown started. We also couldn't buy champagne to celebrate as alcohol sales are prohibited so we were in a bit of a fix. Luckily he likes chocolate so we sneakily bought him some. It was a bit tricky to hide them from him before he saw them as putting away and sanitising the groceries is a whole family affair now. We also ordered some personalised biscuits from The Red Kitchen. We decided to ask for blue tiles as he really liked similar ones we had seen in Istanbul and they turned out beautifully! We added candles to make his day a little more special.

My friend Helen's birthday

Helen lives very nearby and I thought that I could make her day special by at least visiting her, from a distance, and gifting her a little something to have with tea. We love tea so I thought it would be appropriate to give her biscuits shaped like teacups and teapots. And because this is no easy feat, you guessed it, we bought them from The Red Kitchen! I also spent quite a long time on her card as the birthday cards we give each other are epic! 

Mother's Day

There was no better time to celebrate my Mom as, during this lockdown, she has been very patient with my sister and me. She ensures that I remember to take breaks from my schoolwork and reminds my sister to start hers. So we decided to make all the meals for the day so she wouldn't have to lift a finger! I made souffle pancakes for breakfast, which she admittedly did help with, but they were very impressive! For supper, my dad made her favourite meal, and it has actually been her birthday meal of choice since she was a little girl, veal cordon bleu. Again, it was very tasty! She helps me edit these posts so on her behalf, she had a lovely day.

My grandparent's 59th wedding anniversary

That is a really long time to be married so we had to do something meaningful to celebrate this special day. My grandparents, Bonnie and Clyde (no, that's not a typo or a nickname), met while they both worked at Union-Castle so we decided to work with that theme. We got biscuits made with a ship theme and they were incredible! My Grandpa, who has a big sweet tooth, even said that he didn't want to eat them, they were so pretty!

These were only a few of the ways we have celebrated special occasions from home; there have also been countless Zoom calls, phone calls and well wishes. I hope that you have also managed to find ways to commemorate special days while in lockdown and I am sure that you are looking forward to being able to celebrate normally again soon, as am I!

If you want to check out more sweet treats from The Red Kitchen, click the link here or email her at acleeson@gmail.com.