So This Was Christmas 2013..

I can hardly believe that Christmas was nearly 1 whole week ago and tomorrow it will be New Years Eve!  Time flies and I find it rather depressing because Christmastime is one time of the year that I wish could go forever!  I love everything about Christmas, even the crazy crowds at the shopping centres and the extra 2kg (give or take) piled on by eating all those wonderful Christmassy foods! (thankfully most of which have now been eaten from our fridge, with the exception of Hubby's Birthday pav from yesterday which I plan on eating a final piece for dessert this evening!) 

 

Christmas was a little different this year because all the kids got to stay home for the entire day.  Usually my three step kid's only spend 1/2 the day here or there til 1pm or from 1pm (depending on whose turn it is) but next year they will be spending the entire Christmas with their Mother in New Zealand so we got to have them home for the entire day this year.  It was nice, because we didn't have to rush from place to place, the kids got to see the whole family and still had plenty of time to actually play with the gifts they were given.  Next year will be odd without them, but I'm sure we'll cross that bridge when we get to it!

 

Aside from that little difference everything else was tradition as usual.. We kicked off Christmas with a lovely dinner on Christmas Eve with all the trimmings such as roast pork and beef, Christmas ham and prawns.  We took the kids out to look at the Christmas lights (which we looked at quite a few times this year, due to Mr 2's addiction to Christmas Light looking!)  Sprinkled reindeer food on the front lawn, hung our stockings, placed our Santa sacks and left out milk & cookies for Santa (the cookies tasted like lemon washing up liquid, they were not nice and I'm surprised that Santa ate every last crumb!) 

 



 

Christmas Eve Dinner



One of our many light looking adventures



Christmas morning the kids were up at a reasonable hour, Mr 8 creeping in at 5:45 to wake me.  The kids wait until everyone is awake to open their gifts, but know they can tuck into their stockings before that.. So there was a lot of chocolate rustling and woopie cushioning before Mr 2 woke up at 7:30 (I don't think the kids could have waited much longer!) And then they got into their pressies, as per usual far too many but a lot of happy little faces and squeals of delight make the morning all worthwhile (despite the empty bank account!)

 

 

Christmas Morning is never dull in our home!

The rest of the day was spent with my family which was lovely, we don't get to spend enough time together, so Christmas is always a time I look forward to because my family always get together and enjoy the day, like we haven't really been apart.  Christmas is great for that. 

 

So it brings us now to December 30 & our decorations are all still up and our house is still well lit outside (because Mr 2 doesn't want us to take any lights or deco's down as yet) and I guess I really should start taking them down little by little, but I'll make a start on that after New Years. 

 

So I know it's late and I'm closer to New Years than Christmas, but I'd like to wish all of my Blog readers a very Merry Christmas, I hope however, you spent the day it was lovely and special xoxo

 

 

Reindeer Food with Reindeer Topper Printable.

 

Aside from the usual making of the Christmas cards, we kicked off our Christmas creativity this year by making some Reindeer Food.  I first stumbled across the idea of Reindeer food about 3 years ago when a friend of mine made some for the kids to sprinkle on the lawn.. Last year I bought some from a shop, but this year I decided to give it a go and make some myself..

I still had the poem tucked away in the draw so I simply created my own bag topper to go with it. 

 

Download your copy of Reindeer Food Topper for free: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B7pe3wq93TPRcHNfSzV1Q0NERnc

 

What you will need;

 

* Bag of rolled oats.

* 2 ramekins or small bowls 1/2 filled with raw sugar

* Food colouring of your choice (we used red and green)

* Glitter in assorted colours of choice

* Some festive sequins (optional)

 

How to make:

 

Start by placing your rolled oats into a mixing bowl.  You can add as many as you like, depending upon how many packets/jars you plan on making of the Reindeer food.

 

Next add a few drops of the food colouring to the ramekins of raw sugar, mix it in until the sugar turns the desired colour.  Set them aside to dry.  (Instead of this you could also use jelly crystals also)

 

Once the sugar is dried out, add the sugar, glitter and festive sequins to the mixing bowl and give them a good mix through.

 

Once all mixed and your happy with the amount of goodies you have through your rolled oats, you can start placing it into your ziplock bags...

 

Once you have closed them all, print out the provided topper and staple it over the top :)

On Christmas Eve, take the kids outside and sprinkle it all over the lawn, leaving a beautiful sparkly trail for the reindeers to find your home :)  We even recite the poem while we are doing so..

 

Because it makes quite a lot of mixture, why not give some to friends, family or neighbours to spread the magic around.

 

Enjoy & Merry Christmas.

xoxox