The Easter bunny forgot my address...

I love bank holidays. They're even better when you get an extra day off work bolted on to your annual leave for free. Get in. And what's been even better is that we had a lovely Easter lunch yesterday and I didn't even have to cook it - my mother dearest decided to host! You can't beat Mum meals. Even if she does decide that the best 'universal' starter to suit everybody round the table is that 1970s crowd pleaser - prawn cocktail. (Although I can't complain too much as she does leave out the revolting nuclear tainted pink Marie Rose sauce, and adds nice lumps of white crab meat to the mix. With shredded cucumber and lime juice.)

Anyway, to more pressing matters. Easter eggs. In my opinion the best Easter eggs ever in the world bar none are the weeny little Cadbury's Buttons ones that cost about £1. The chocolate egg tastes so much better than normal chocolate for some reason! (Probably the excessive amounts of extra sugar they pump into them when moulding the eggs, but shush.) Then you have the added bonus of finding a bag of chocolate buttons inside. Fantastic. However, I have a bone to pick with the Easter Bunny this year. Did I buy eggs for others? Yes I did. And despite several hints of a not-so-subtle variety about cheap Cadbury's Buttons eggs, did I receive one? No I did not.

No Buttons egg. Not even one solitary egg. Or Mini-eggs. Not even a paste egg that my sister normally makes and stinks my mother's house out to high heaven with a boiling, staining concoction of coffee and onion skins. (Okay, I don't like boiled eggs but that's neither here nor there.) I suppose you know you're getting older when even the Easter Bunny forgets your address. When I have children I really want to hide mini Easter eggs around the garden and make an egg hunt for them. (Or get The Other Half to hide them so I can take part too - that sounds like a better plan.) However hard I try, I don't think I'll ever grow up. Do I have to? Oh yeah, people already think I have. Hence the zero Easter Eggs situation. Harrumph.

Bree Van De Kamp, look out...

Slap my arse and call me Judy. Actually, no - just call me Nigella, for I am a newly-appointed domestic goddess. Well, almost. (Only with a rounder backside and no suggestive spoon-licking shots for the imaginary camera in my kitchen.) Yes, pardon my self appreciation here, but the truffles for work did not turn out like little poisoned balls of evil; instead, they were rather nice and I was mightily impressed with my confectionery efforts. As were my colleagues when I handed them out. Happy days indeed.

Yum.

OK, my sister helped me with one batch (I needed 2 pairs of hands - one to roll the truffles, one to dip them in chocolate) but I'm still proud. I even survived a slightly panicky 10 minutes when I thought the white chocolate batch I was making had split in the bowl (cue lots of swearing). They hadn't. I just hadn't taken them off the heat. Panic over. So, in-keeping with my 1950s-housewife image, I have (somewhat belatedly) asked Father Christmas to kindly find the time to fill my stocking with some cookbooks so I can experiment further. I wonder what he might bring.

Even more exciting is how many more working days I have left before Christmas - only two to go! Oh yeah. Had my team Christmas lunch (not a turkey in sight - all veggie!) and the drinks after work on Friday - amusing, to say the least. I was slightly merry, and have a vague recollection of telling my friend G that she had fantastic boobs (whilst copping a feel). And I ended up in a little pub where they were playing reggae. But not just any reggae, oh no. Bad reggae versions of Christmas songs. We left in protest via the Chinese takeaway.

Humbug, Scrooge, Grinch...whatever...

Tonight I'm missing my work Christmas party. Yes, yes - I know. While it is considered to be bad form by many not to attend; in my defence, I was double booked. But before you rename me Ebeneezer - it might be the company-wide party I'm missing, but I've still got my team Christmas lunch to look forward to, and the customary drinks-after-work-on-the last-day-of-term affair. I very much doubt I'd have been missed anyway. There'll have been the same gossip as last year which I'll hear all about tomorrow - someone will have made a horrendous fashion faux-pas; someone will have kissed someone they shouldn't have; someone will have said something they definitely shouldn't have; and there'll be beautiful pasty faces, panda eyes and hangovers galore at work in the morning. And besides, I'm on a mission this week. And that mission is truffles.

In a vain attempt to save some dosh this Christmas, I decided to make all my presents for work. Last year when I was the new girl, it was sprung on me at the last minute that my team of eight all buy gifts for each other, so I had to hot-foot it into town on my lunch hour and hastily ended up making my own crackers. (Bought a couple of cracker kits and filled them with sweets and mini games. They went down well. My stress levels did not. Fighting the shopping crowds a few days before Christmas with an hour's window is not my idea of a good time.) So this year, I'm more prepared and fancy testing my culinary skills. I've been out for the ingredients, have jars and decorations a-go-go and am all set to whip up a confectionery storm. However, I have never made any such things before and sweet treats are known not to be my forte in the kitchen, so this could all go hideously wrong. If I end up with inedible chocolate golf balls that look like they were made on the Generation Game, I'll resort to Plan B: olives and herbs in oil.

And it's my last full week at work before Christmas this week - awoohoo! The little iPod is loaded with Yuletide tunes and I'm ready to sing. In my head, of course. I wouldn't subject the hungover office to the horrors of my tuneless voice. Then again...

Trick or treat (or not)...

I'm too grumpy to write today. Not only did I fall asleep on the sofa mid-way into film three of my five-stops odyssey (Carrie. I dozed off just as Chris, Billy and gang broke into the pig pen for phase one of their stunt, and dreamt of that hideous glow-in-the-dark plastic Jesus in Carrie's closet), but not one single little person dressed in scary garb came a-calling, and this morning the awful truth dawned on me as I picked bits of popcorn and wrappers out of my hair that I'd eaten waaaaay too much Halloween chocolate and polished off a tad too much Tia Maria. Meh. I'm going to have to take the remaining sweets into work just so anyone but me can finish them.

And I'm depressed that every retailer in the world has now seemingly upped the advertising ante. Almost every commercial I've seen so far today has in some way or another related to Christmas. Whether its 'perfect gift ideas' (I wouldn't, however, call X-Factor rejects peddling more cover versions and seasonal tunes a perfect gift idea); Christmas scented air fresheners (more like pine trees and mulled wine smells, not the aroma of turkey carcass as I first thought); sofas with guaranteed before-Yule deliveries; every damned advert has had either jingly bells Christmas music or snowflake graphics and grinning idiots in Santa hats. And you just know that ALL the shops are going to be sickeningly bedecked with all their festive tat. The supermarkets have had Halloween and Christmas aisles running parallel for weeks.

It's the first day of November. NOVEMBER! We haven't even had bonfire night yet. I don't want to be made to feel guilty for not having started any Christmas shopping yet. Ooh I'm going to make something with my pumpkin remains before I throw something at the TV. Which may just happen if I hear those unmistakable strains of The Snowman or see that singing muppet, Aled flamin' Jones, presenting something inane. Hopefully whipping up a kitchen storm may remove my loathing.

It also may not.

Something wicked this way comes...

Okay, I have a bowl of mini-chocolaty things so tiny that if they weren't packaged, they'd be invisible; a carved pumpkin which may look like roadkill, but I've named him Eric and hope he's happy with my rubbish orange-scented tea light candles which actually smell more like petrol that anything citrussy; a black cat (who happens to be asleep, but never mind) and a pile of scary DVDs. I think I'm all set for Halloween. But what are these scary flicks, you may ask? (You may not be asking, of course, but I'm going to tell you anyway.) Well, some of them aren't so scary. But I class them as seasonal fun. And it wouldn't be Halloween without them.

• Halloween - well, obviously this one has to make an appearance. It'd be rude not to invite the original and best stalk n slash (in my opinion) along. With its tinkly soundtrack and baddie with a spray-painted mask, it's creepy with a capital C. See if you can spot the director's cigarette smoke in the shot where Michael hides behind the hedge. Always makes me smile.
• Arsenic and Old Lace - an oldie, but a goodie. Newlywed Cary Grant takes his missus to meet his two kindly old spinster aunts, only to discover they are in fact homicidal maniacs and who have been bumping off their gentlemen callers and hiding the bodies around the house. Much screwball hilarity ensues.
• Sleepy Hollow - I *heart* Tim Burton. You can spot one of his movies at 50 paces - they're all so visually stunning and weird. A strange little village is being terrorised by The Headless Horseman, so Johnny Depp is sent to employ order to this nonsense and solve the mystery. Christopher Walken plays the Horseman, complete with delightful filed-into-points teeth. And there's a lovely not-for-the-squeamish autopsy scene.
• Carrie - a bit contrived it may be, but I love the Stephen King book and I love the film. Those girls were so evil to her! Carrie's mother is a truly terrifying religious nutcase and I won't spoil the ending for anyone who hasn't seen it, but my cousin almost wet herself when we stealthily watched this together as 10 year olds.
• Hocus Pocus - my last, and highly embarrassing entry to this list. The kid from Eerie, Indiana (remember that? It rocked) accidentally brings back three hanged Salem witches from the dead to the modern day, where they try to steal the souls of children on Halloween in order to stay alive. You couldn't get much camper than Bette Midler (complete with a token song and dance routine), pre-SATC Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy (the overtly happy nun from Sister Act) as the three witches, but it's lots of Disney fun.

Right, I'm armed with popcorn and off to the sofa. I just hope I get SOME little trick or treaters knocking on my door to take these sweets off my hands. Jeeezus, I sound like the gingerbread house witch in Hansel and Gretel.

Hubble, bubble, toil and trouble...

Well, how disappointing. Not one Halloween party to go to, after I'd planned a costume out and everything (in tribute to my recent hearing-Uma-Thurman-wee incident, I would have taken the guise of Pulp Fiction's Mia Wallace, complete with bloody nose, foaming mouth and foot-long hypodermic sticking out of my chest. I'd worked out how to get the needle to stick and the whole shebang). Oh, well. My razor sharp black bobbed wig and fake blood will just have to wait for an outing next year instead. Sigh. (Actually, I would have had an invite to the spookiest party in the world ever bar none, had the hosts not had the audacity to break up. Honestly, people can be so selfish. Didn't they know about my costume idea?!)

So, I've planned my annual film, pumpkin and chocolate fest for All Hallow's Eve in lieu of going out. I might not have the pumpkin carving down to a t yet (they somehow always end up looking a bit, well, retarded rather than scary) but I've nailed what to do with the leftover pumpkin flesh after I've carved my Jack O'Lantern. Some things I've tried and tested are:

Pumpkin Pie - this has gone down well whenever I've made it, and smells divine when its baking. Can be a bit squishy when first made, so let it cool and store overnight in the fridge before serving if you can, to firm it up. Chopped pecans make a very nice addition, as do mini marshmallows to decorate.

Risotto - looks so impressive and colourful, but is really simple to do. I've made this all year round using butternut squash if I couldn't get hold of a pumpkin (as you tend to see pumpkins for a period of about 3 weeks in October, they they mysteriously vanish). Extra nice if you stir in some chopped chestnuts.

Cheesecake - people often think that cheesecakes are really complicated affairs, but this is delicious and again, not difficult at all to do. You can often buy the bases ready made if you're apprehensive. Even more indulgent served with ice cream, and decorated with toffee sauce and pecan nuts.

Spicy seeds - great if you have tons of seeds leftover and really don't know what to do with them. Mix in some chunky nuts like cashews for some extra crunch, or you can jazz them up with different flavours - I found a chili and lemon spice mix which works well, or go for all-out volcanic heat and use jerk and Tabasco.

Pumpkin Soup - the easiest thing to make ever, and you can bulk it up with all sorts of things like sweet potato, parsnip, even garlic mashed potato or something. Or add a bit of orange juice and coriander for some zing. You can't go wrong. Sprinkle some toasted pumpkin seeds on top to serve, and you're done.

Yum indeed. I might sample some new recipes with my pumpkin scoops this year. Anyway, off to purchase some trick or treat sweets now in case I get some little ghouls knocking on my door tomorrow evening; here's hoping I get some callers and don't end up devouring the stash myself.