Christmas cake fruit and mincemeat

This morning I've finally got round to mixing and soaking the fruit for the Christmas cake, and improving the mincemeat.  Normally I make my own mincemeat, and would have made the cake by now....this year we've had so much health stuff going on I just haven't done it.  Better late than never, though.  

I haven't made mincemeat, I just bought a large jar.  It doesn't look terribly appetising though, so I've decanted it into a bowl and added extra dried fruit, the zest of an orange and lemon and some sherry, it'll sit covered until tomorrow, when I make the mince pies.

For the Christmas cake fruit, I've added dried raisins, cranberries, prunes and apricots to a bowl - that's what husband likes and what I've got.  I like mixed peel and cherries in a rich fruit cake, husband doesn't and he eats more cake than I do, so I just put in what he likes as I'll most likely only have 1 or 2 small slices of the cake.  I also like nuts in a cake, again he doesn't, so I haven't used any.  The zest of an orange and lemon went in, along with their juice, a big slug of the raspberry and honey whisky I made last year, and a capful of a hazelnut vodka liqueur given to us by a Polish friend a while back....only a capful as it's so strong it blows your head off!  Mixed spice and cinnamon added as well.  I'll keep stirring it every few hours and let it stand for a couple of days before making the cake.  

The kitchen smells like Christmas already.  I put on a Christmas CD whilst I was doing it, just for the atmosphere!  I'm not a huge fan of Christmas really, neither of us is, but one of the things I do really like is Christmas songs....old fashioned like White Christmas, pop ones like Slade's Merry Christmas Everybody, and carols like O Come all ye Faithful.