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

 

 

Christmas Comes but Once a Year..

December 13th! Already?! Where does the time go?  We are well & truly into the swing of Christmas around here (I think I have been since late October..lol) but now with the tree/s up, lights on & house decorated there is something magical about this time of the year that I just adore!

I am a bit of a stickler to traditions and it's our family tradition that we put up the Christmas tree on December 1st, unfortunately this year I had to bend my tradition ever so slightly and put the tree up on the 2nd as we were at the in-laws celebrating a rather early Christmas on the 1st.  It was still our intention to put up the tree that night but after a big lunch & rather exhausting day we ended up heading out to look at Christmas lights instead. Although all of the kids were asleep in the car very very quickly! 

 

So our tree went up December 2nd and we had a big roast dinner to mark the occasion like we do every year, roast pork with all the trimmings.. The kids got a kick out of the Christmas dinner set this year and loved getting out their Christmas cups/mugs and placemats.. After dinner we popped on a Christmas movie 'Beethoven's Christmas' and started to decorate the tree...

 

I love our tree, I bought it at a Target Christmas sale on Nov 30, 2010 ~ just in time to put it up the next day.. The only down side of my beautiful tree, it is impossible to decorate! I really think they should have put a disclaimer on the box saying so, its branches are so thick it makes hanging ornaments impossible unless you have metal hooks and even then you have to bend them out of shape and clamp them back down over the branch to secure them!

 

Nevertheless I love my tree and it really is a representation of our family.. we each have personalised baubles and baubles that mean something to us on it and I love how it 'grows' each year and accumulates more and more character! 

 

So after about 4 hours the tree was up and decorated.. It is only decorated from part way up this year so little hands can't get to it and we also have a baby play pen surrounding it.

Despite all of this baby proofing im still really happy with the way it has turned out and could stare at it endlessly.

 

So aside from the house decorating we have been driving around looking at others Christmas lights, this has been quite a regular event as our youngest has taken to ONLY falling asleep in the car at nights.. which will be rather boring after everyones lights have come down.. at least we have something to look at, at the moment on our nightly trips.

 

With just a little under 2 weeks left til Christmas this next week is going to be jam packed with lots of Christmas activities to really make the most of this season.. after all Christmas comes but once a year!  Enjoy xx