This weekend we've had an early family Christmas. And right from the off it was more like Christmas, than I thought it might be. On Friday I realised that Friday was my Christmas Eve Eve, if that's such a thing, and I needed to finish my shopping. So off I went, returning relatively quickly with a present against all the names on my list.

The plan was to have Christmas lunch on Sunday with my family, but in another parallel to Christmas a few weeks later, we also met up with MOH's family the day before. And of course I left it until the last minute to wrap those presents I'd bought too, but some pretty paper and some festive washi tape came to the rescue there.

Food-wise we were much more organised. We were in charge of pudding, and on our menu was MOH's speciality lighter Christmas pudding and a baked lemon cheesecake for the non-dried-fruit-eating-contingent. And for those that like two puddings. In fact making puddings are MOH's thing, so he made the lemon cheesecake too.

And while he did I set about collecting a few parcels from both the local sorting office and a bit further afield in Walthamstow - more on that to come soon. It was Small Business Saturday and my plan to do both chores in the same hit was scuppered by traffic, as the King's Troop were parading through the village. I missed them as I'd aborted my attempt in the car and headed back to the post office on foot. It was a lovely day, and I was glad of the walk, especially when met with a view like this.

Usually with baked cheesecake there's a bit of leakage during cooking, so it's a case of remembering to place a baking sheet on the shelf below to catch that. Or to clean the oven. Yes exactly. This time though I got MOH to test a new tin from PushPan I'd been sent, which claims to be leak-proof and watertight.

The difference is the silicone gasket which forms a seal on the removable cake tin bottom

The push pan initially looks like any cake tin

The base of the push pan with its silicone gasket seal

It's made from heavy gauge carbon steel and has a patented silicone seal base. My other quick release tin has a spring catch, which if I'm honest I'm never sure if it's done up or not, which probably doesn't help the leakage. But no more. This has a silicon seal - the red bit - on the base and it seems to work.

It did need a bit of an extra push to get the cheesecake out, but then again it was completely cold as we left it in the tin to travel. It seemed the safest place for it to be. And it arrived in one piece, although I added the sour cream and lemon curd topping at the table. I also left it on the base, which I probably wouldn't have done at home, but plates were at a premium with eight of us for dinner.

The lemon cheesecake part-way being served

And it seemed to work. No baking tray underneath it and no mess in the oven. MOH is a perfectionist baker and didn't approve of the plain chocolate digestives I bought for the base. I rather liked them though. And the cheesecake was good.

Our lovely lemon cheesecake still on the base of the push pan tin because sometimes when you're not in your own kitchen it's just easier

And after dinner of turkey, ham and all the trimmings - including rationed pigs in blankets - and then christmas pudding and/or baked lemon cheesecake, we did the other Christmas thing, and opened our presents. And like many families, that brought the usual chaos and mess.

So quite a weekend, and for us Christmas really has come early this year. And it'll be coming again at the more usual time of year! It was great to spend time together and the Family Fortunes board game was great fun too, although Vernon Kay has nothing to be afraid of. How do you celebrate Christmas with your family?

* With thanks to PushPan who sent me their new tin to try, as usual all views are my own. That mess above though, I had very little to do with that.

We're back from a weekend in Norfolk and I've a few Norfolk posts to share with you this week. I make no apology for that, as it's a beautiful place and one of those places that I find it easy to chill out and recharge in. As usual when leaving mum and dads, I left with more than I arrived with and full of cake, which of course is never a problem. As well as our purchases - it's rare that I'll visit Norfolk and not buy some fish at the Fish Shed in Brancaster Staithe and so take up space in mum's fridge too - there were some aquilegias, lupins and foxgloves from dad's garden, a giant lettuce he'd grown and something more unusual, a coffee set.

But not just any coffee set.

This one, a Midwestern set called Plant Life, was a wedding present to my parents from my granddad, which they've hardly used (their words) since their wedding in 1958 and as I've recently developed a taste for coffee (thanks to Nespresso) when it was offered, I was thrilled to bring it home.

I have memories of the best dinner service coming out for special occasions as I grew up, and wanting to be extra careful with it and not drop or damage it. I've a skill for being a tad clumsy you see, but I think I managed not to break any of this and I'm hoping that record continues.

It's been a while though since I looked at the design more closely. I'm not sure back then that I ever really looked at it in the same way I do now. But now that I do, it makes me smile. Its images and drawings are still modern and contemporary, or at least not dated, if you prefer to think of it that way.

And I've just the place for it too.

It's now proudly sitting in my dresser, where I think it looks great. It goes nicely alongside my Le Creuset Classic orange casserole and the Norfolk-crafted earthenware noodle bowls and I love it against the duck egg blue and the wood.

Bringing it home was the prompt I needed to spring clean the dresser's display cupboards and rejig what went where. Now it looks prettier but is still - probably more - functional, which is just as well as I've promised to put this to good use.

Now, who's for coffee?