Open Centre

Getting ready for the perfect Christmas is easier said than done. 

Even once you've battled your way round the shops, written the cards and braved the supermarket, there's still the wrapping, decorating and the cooking before you can sit back with a glass of sherry and enjoy the fruits of your labour.

The Guides at the BBC Open Centre decided to enlist the help of some local experts to make sure their Christmas skills were up to scratch before the big day.

First up was Emily, with her Christmas presents and an armful of wrapping paper.

Denise shows Emily the ropes

Denise Dalton from Princess Quay Shopping Centre volunteered to show Emily how it's done. 

Denise was adamant that she's not a professional gift wrapper, but, having been wrapping gifts at the information centre for the past two years, she says "practice makes perfect".

Emily, on the other hand, hates to wrap presents and can usually be found armed with gift boxes and bags to make things easier.

But not this time...

"I had everything from footballs, tins of sweets, a golf club and a tea pot, just to mention a few.

Emily concentrates on the fiddly bits

I surprised myself with the outcome of my wrapping, they did actually look good enough to give as presents.

I even curled a length of ribbon with scissors, my biggest achievement of the day!

Well with the challenge out of the way it’s back to wrapping my own Christmas shopping but I’m just praying there are no awkward shapes!"

Next up was Ros, who is always full of creative ideas, and who enlisted the help of Carol Martin from Swanland Nurseries to help her create a beautiful table centrepiece for the Christmas table.

Carol shows Ros how to make bows

"Imagine how thrilling it was to have a professional florist share her vast knowledge with me, helping me to produce a really lovely individual arrangement for my daughter.

Carol showed me how to wire leaves, flowers and baubles and how to tie the intricate ribbon bows. Initially I was ‘all fingers and thumbs’.

The finished article

However, my teacher was very understanding and patient, and as my table decoration took shape she made many useful suggestions to improve its appearance. 

I hope you agree that the finished item looks really lovely."

By now, the Guides were getting very confident so for the next challenge we pulled out all the stops and decided to decorate our very own Christmas cake.

Richard Skelton from The Cake Room in Hessle challenged our very own Richard Gorton to a cake decorating contest.

"Starting with the basics Richard had me roll out green sugar paste.

First, I liberally powdered a board with icing sugar, rolled the paste and then flipped it over. 

Ready, Steady, Go!

BIG mistake! Richard explained that I had now covered both sides of the green paste in white icing, not a great look for what was going to be a Christmas tree….then I used the tree shaped cutter to make three shapes and stuck them to my beautifully (even though I say so myself) iced marzipan finish.

Richard was well ahead of me by now and had already finished writing a ‘Happy Christmas’ greeting in icing on the top of his cake. 

I hurriedly began piping out icing onto mine but in the rush I spelt the word ‘Christmas’ as ‘Chritmas’ much to the amusement of the rest of the Open Centre team. 

To make up for my spelling blunder I attempted a bit of freestyle decorating.

Exploring my inner artist, I wrote BBC in large red letters and added a few snow flakes and a badly drawn image of Santa just to be on the safe side.

Not bad for a first attempt!

I was strangely proud of the finished product but somehow I don’t think I’ll be employed by Richard Skelton and his cake decorating team any time soon."

So, with the presents wrapped, the table decorated and the Christmas cake ready - there's just one more thing - where did I put that turkey?

Seasons greetings from the BBC Open Centre team!