And so that was Christmas.

Hello! I'm sneaking in a last-minute post to record our December festivities, and now that I'm on holidays may even sneak in a few more to belatedly fill in some gaps from this year!  But first, before I forget: Christmas.



Christmas just seems to get more crazy every year, in terms of my workload. Some days I romance the idea of a mid-year tap concert for my school, but my students and I probably need the December concert to be a big full-stop (really an exclamation mark!) for the whole year of tap. So I spend November and December in a panic: producing, directing, choreographing and administrating two concerts; all the while trying to keep some headspace free for the myriad of other things that need to be done at the end of the year. What it means is that by the time I'm ready to get Christmas prep started I'm exhausted and having to push through in a slightly hysterical manner.



Anyway. We got the tree done very early in December, and everything else (shopping, cooking, wrapping, card-writing) very, very late, but it did all come together on the day.  I woke on Christmas morning with my heart racing, thinking something important happens today, what is it? and then I thought oh yeah, Christmas and stopped thinking work-work-work and instead tried to relax and enjoy.



The kids came in to our bedroom at a very respectable 7:30am and opened their stockings with us. I do like this time, watching them dig in and find a little something and then show it to us all, then wait patiently for their brother to do the same.  It's quite lovely.



Poor Cherub had to wait before we opened the under-the-tree presents.  Like Inigo Montoya, he hates waiting. But everyone needed to be dressed and breakfasted and ready to leave before the wrapping paper could be ripped away.




I think everyone liked what they received but I am conscious that Christmas carries the weight of expectation, a feeling that maybe under the tree is something so lavish and wonderful that you'll explode with happiness.  And then there's just the dvd you requested and a smallish lego set. On our income with all these people to buy for there is never going to be a big ticket item for anyone, even when I do let the guilt get to me and spend more than I think I ought to on them.  And I think our kids know this and accept it in theory, but they also carry this memory of being 4-years-old, and receiving a really big box full of Thomas the Tank Engine stuff that blew their mind with excitement.  Christmas does  kind of go downhill after that.  But hopefully after you realise that the fireworks present isn't happening this year, you take stock of the nice stuff you did receive and feel happy and grateful. Hopefully.





In the lead-up to Christmas we had a couple of family gatherings, a big get-together with my Mum's extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins and second cousins galore!) which is always fun, although as it was scheduled on the same day as my Tapkids Concert, I was pretty wiped out during and didn't manage any photographs.  My boys are always pretty popular with the younger kids at these parties and generally walk away with a devoted fan each year.  This year it was 5-year-old Alec who insisted that Climber needed to come to his house for a sleep-over.  Anyway. Here's a photo of my Mum staying with us afterwards.  It was good that she was able to be here, especially to spend time with my sister who is recovering from horrid-but-successful treatment for tongue cancer.



Then there was our Mothers Group Christmas celebration, our 14th! This year we tried the kids out with a 'crap-cringle' which is where instead of buying presents targeted at a specific person you lucky-dip for a gift and if you don't like it you can exchange it for a present that has already been opened. This system favours persons whose name comes out of the hat last, and ruthlessness is meant to be the name of the game, something I'm sorry to say my children displayed shamelessly. This meant we came home with the giant Toblerone and the giant box of Malteasers.  Also the gingerbread house kit, which I think meant we got ALL the sweet stuff.  Good work, Fixit males.



Despite this, my kids have decided that they prefer being bought for over the riskiness and crazy fun of crap-cringles.  They have always been fairly cautious individuals.



On Christmas Day we spent lunch time with the Fixit family, and I really only took one acceptable photo (Pa Fixit handing out presents) and then the afternoon onwards at my aunt and uncle's house with my sister and brother and father and half-brothers and cousins. Didn't take a single shot there, but we had a lovely time and ate some very fine food indeed.



On Boxing Day we headed to Barwon Heads to see some more of my family, and enjoyed more good food and company.  Climber and Cherub were very taken with baby Beatrix.





And then it was back home to play with the lego and the computer game and to read the new book and eat some of that chocolate, and to rest and stop rushing. It's all good. All that rush and work and effort means there's a busy vibrant Christmas going on round our way, and really that's something to be very happy about. Family, friends, food and fun. Christmas as it should be.  Hope yours was too.

... and then it was Christmas

In the lead-up to Christmas when I was trying to organise the tap shows, the shopping and just all the other things you need to do at the end of the year (teacher presents, Christmas cards), I was feeling completely stressed, and rather resentful of all the work. Luckily for me, Jodie posted this and woke me up to what an idiot I was being.  Her words made me realise that this so-called work is actually the best kind, because what I was really doing was creating fun and memories and excitement. And that one day in the not-too-distant future, my kids are going to be grown-ups and all that ado and anticipation will be gone. So I decided to cherish the effort instead of resenting it, because I still have my sweet excited children for a few more years, and they are what make Christmas the best time of year.

So here is my list of the things that made me happy this Christmas, and more than made up for having to visit shopping malls or slave away in the kitchen.

The fun of decorating the Christmas tree with my family.



The fun of our Mothers Group annual Christmas party, our thirteenth together. This was taken pre water-fight.



The fun of having children who love to enter in to the spirit of Christmas.







The excitement of Christmas Eve, of making sure you tire out your children with bike rides and swimming so that they'll be able to get to sleep that night, of leaving out Santa snacks and hanging out the stocking and of writing a hasty last-minute note to Santa because for the first time ever we didn't post an official one.



The fun of opening stockings in the early hours of Christmas morning.

And then, after breakfast, of opening the family Christmas presents under the tree.

The excitement of receiving a present you really, really wanted.
I got a fez! I got a fez!



I got a bike basket, I got a bike basket!



And then a lovely day spent with family, including Ma Fixit who is finally out of hospital after nearly 4 months, and who struggled desperately with having to sit quietly while her daughters-in-law (and her husband and children) did the bulk of the work.



Followed by a long and relaxing evening with my Dad and my extended family.

So it was a very Happy Christmas for us, and I've had plenty of time since to recover from the 'work' involved. Hope yours was too!

Our Christmas.

Both kids were awake at 3-ish [for a toilet break] and the Cherub woke again at 5-ish [for a stealthy rummage in the Santa Sack break, which was overheard by sharp-eared mother and resulted in confiscation] and then we all came to at about 7-ish and the boys brought their booty into our bedroom.  I think the out-of-focusness of this shot exactly reflects how tired I felt at this stage.  Actually it has to be said that all that waking caught up with Cherub too, and he had a few mini-melts before lunch.  (See the kitty sitting on Fixit behind him?)



Later in the morning, after the peppermint creams (and the Climber) were coated in chocolate...



...and the adults had showered and dressed, we opened the family presents under our tree.

Scrabble was a dominant theme in my present swag.



Whereas the boys had some Star Wars stuff...



and some Doctor Who stuff.



Exterminate!



Then it was time to drive over to the Fixit Family Lunch, where we ate a filling lunch, caught up with loved ones, opened more presents and admired Grandma Fixit's excellent collection of Santa doodads.





After that, we hit the road again to another family gathering at my Aunt and Uncle's house.  This was just when the enormous Christmas Day storms were starting to hit Melbourne.  We saw a fair bit of hail (just normal sized stones, not the golf balls that some suburbs saw) and a LOT of rain.  Big rain too, big raindrops.

Anyway, we had a very pleasant time; more family, food, more presents. Climber is now the proud owner of a digital camera with a very cute panorama setting. See?



And at about 7-ish we arrived home.  We had one very hairy drive through a road flood which was -we think- about 75cms high.  Fixit and Cherub thought it was cool, Climber and I felt quite uneasy and sighed with relief when we made it through.  And then as we approached our street we saw that the whole road was underwater at the southern end, and we had to drive around to the northern end to get into our own driveway. It started to clear not long after but in the meantime we raced down to the end of the road to capture the flood.



Nobody had any trouble falling asleep that evening, after all that fun, family and feasting! Hope you had a lovely day too.

Christmas Eve

I did some baking for our contribution to the 2 family feasts we're attending tomorrow.


(Peppermint creams - they'll be dipped in chocolate tomorrow- and Fairlie's shortbread)

We watched the finale of So You Think You Can Dance (Season 8) all the way to the end despite the fact that the boys were flagging by about 9pm.  The idea was to have them fully tired when they went to bed so they'd fall straight asleep and not be bouncing around in bed thinking about Santa till an annoyingly late time.  We also went for a bike ride earlier today and made them run round entertaining the 3yo child of our afternoon visitors.


 


Then we went for a tour of the local Christmas lights.  About six houses in adjacent streets had gone to a bit of effort.



Finally we hung up the stockings and put out some treats for Santa and the reindeer.



I reckon the boys were asleep within 10 minutes of hitting the hay.  A Christmas Eve record, surely?



Hope you have a great day tomorrow! Love from us all xxxx

So jump in bed and cover your head...

...cos Santa Claus comes tonight.

Oh my goodness, the Cherub is excited! I don't know how he got through today. Well actually I do, by telling me approximately 50,000 times in high-pitched glee Santa's coming tonight!!!!



Meanwhile, Fixit's work sent them all home at lunchtime, freeing me up to do a few last-minute errands which had been neglected owing to a day of extreme heat yesterday, as well as the urgent water pump repairs for the Corolla, which deprived me of my car for 2 days and $900 for all time.



I have been attempting some sewing this Christmas, and right when I was trying to knock together a little bag my machine seized. So it was just as well Fixit came home early because despite claiming to know nothing about sewing machines, he fixed mine and I was able to finish up.



Our Christmas tree is looking gorgeous with a full complement of presents underneath, many swathed in Aunty Cookie's gorgeous wrapping paper.



I was quite proud of the Christmas cards I made this year, simple but pretty.



The boys made elaborate constructions out of components of Georellis and the game Mousetrap in order to give Santa a little present. Cherub's features a candy cane...



... but Climber got a bit fancy and I gather Santa needs to knock the bucket over to send the ball rolling down the staircase to drop on the see-saw which will catapult Santa's present into a receptacle.



Outside, a plate of goodies waits for the big guy with the beard and the reindeer.



In the boys' room we hung stockings.



Next to the stockings are 2 very excited people who I hope are sleeping now.



Happy Christmas for tomorrow! Or just love and goodwill if Christmas is not your bag.
Stomper x