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Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Christmas 2010


I have thoroughly enjoyed the silly season this year and I threw myself into it head first.. decorated the house to excess, cooked up a storm, shopped til I dropped, stared at numerous Christmas lighting displays til I had stars in my eyes, wore my Christmas shirt at least ten times and overall had an absolute ball!  I can't believe its all over in the blink of an eye.. today I cleared out the leftovers from our very wet and soggy Christmas BBQ and for the first time ever I contemplated taking down my ornaments early, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.. I'll leave them up for just a few more days.

 
This year has been the first year in a little while that the cats haven't tried to destroy my Christmas tree, which has been nice, it looks the same as the night we put it up! So I guess I should relish that a little longer.

I loved having all the family over for a Christmas BBQ, it was so nice to have the majority of them all in one place, catching up.  If nothing else, that is my absolute favourite part of Christmas..


Other than that, I loved the following;

1. Sleeping in on Christmas day til 8am (although I wouldn't have minded being woken up at 5am either.. but it seems the little fella wanted to keep snoozing..) Quite thankful as we were up to 3am getting ready for it! And then seeing the look on the kids faces opening their presents.

2. Christmas lights; I love the effort that people put in, to put a smile on kids faces (and adults faces) at Christmas. There are so many beautiful light displays out there and even those with a string or two make Christmas all that more cheerful.

3. Reading Christmas books to the kids each night of December (or half of November..) I love the stories and they make the build up to Christmas a little more exciting each evening.

4. Advent Calendars.. Counting down to the big day with chocolate, what more could you want?? We had a chocolate style and a non-chocolate style too which was nice.

5. 12 Day of Christmas Activity - each day a new card hung on the tree for Indigo to open, what would we be doing today - visiting Santa, baking Christmas cookies, a Christmas movie?

6. Wrapping paper - I love wrapping paper, I bought 10 different designs this year because I simply couldn't choose one, so many pretty designs out there..

7. Tinsel - I'm not usually one to use tinsel, but this year I couldn't get enough of the glittery stuff, sparkly.

8. Chocolate - Both the children and I were given way too much, but it is way too nice to turn down. My favourite are chocolate seashells.



9. Making personalised baubles for my Parents, In laws and Grandparents. I was very happy with the way they turned out and I know they will be cherished for years to come. I was also touched to hear so many people are still using the ones I made years ago.



10. Seeing the loving care that goes into the plate of food and letter (or in my son's case, a gift pack he had handmade for Santa) that is left out on Christmas eve, its so sweet.


11. Shopping.. from the early presents I organised earlier in the year, to the layby's I made during the toy sales, to the Christmas shopping marathons I did earlier in the month whilst the kids were still at school, the late night shop where my son was in awe of stores being open at 11pm and the last minute grocery run on Christmas eve, I love the atmosphere of the shops at Christmastime.

So Christmas is done for another year, I hope you enjoyed your Christmas, whichever way you celebrated it, I look forward to next years Christmas.