Christmas Eve

Decorations in the city

 a gift from the Christmas Fairy

Reindeer Ti-Ti

Stone Santa

The Gingerbread Village, in the city

Our gingerbread house

Christmas Eve dinner at Abu's house

Christmas time making

I've been decorating twigs and crocheting garlands to hang. Planning biscuits to make, gathering recipes for glazed hams, buying supplies and sweeties for the gingerbread house we'll make tomorrow.....

and Toby and I have been crafting together too. Googly eye glueing, painting, pretending to be Mister Maker...

and making a festive reindeer for Daddy's desk. (There was to have been a Father Christmas too, but Toby was adamant the toilet roll he had just painted red would be better off being a fire engine, and I couldn't argue with that!)

Decorating the Tree

It was almost as much fun for Toby as Christmas day.  He couldn't wait to hang up his new nutcracker from Gra-Gra, and we opened our box of decorations in an excited frenzy, tissue paper flying and Toby shouting "I remember this one Mummy!"
 

Christmas has begun

Toby and I are very excited about Christmas this year.
I remember reading something somewhere on another blog, where the girl was writing about loving all the excitement of Christmas, all the preparations, all the planning, but feeling a little bit let down by the actual day itself. I know what she means. Especially since being here in Australia, the Christmases don't feel like those of my own childhood. No fires in the living room, twinkling fairy lights lighting up the house by half past three as it's so dark outside. Frost crunching underfoot in the mornings, the excitement and possibilities of snow, icicles hanging off the windows, and cold, how I miss the cold at Christmas!
But there are positives here too. Sunshine, lots of it. Light, warmth, long days, cider on the roof terrace, barbeques, eating seafood.

So this year I decided that we'll make the most of the excitement of Christmas, to spread it out over the whole month. I have finished making Toby his advent calendar. Everyday a new felt ornament to hang on the fabric tree, and a little surprise for him in the pocket too. Yesterday he couldn't believe it when he found a large gold (chocolate) coin, and that he was allowed to eat it before breakfast! And today an even bigger surprise, a tiny letter from the Christmas fairy, a small chocolate coin and a Lego skateboarder.

He was beside himself with excitement! And he's been re-counting the story of how he found everything in his advent calendar, how the Christmas fairy had left it all there for him while he slept, all morning to Gaw-Gaw.
This is what Christmas is all about for me. Magic, the sharing of excitement, anticipation.

And we're going to put the tree up this weekend, to make the most of it. And just in time, a parcel arrived this morning from England with new decorations for our tree! Toby loved his soldier, thank you Gra-Gra!

Last Weekend

Just mucking about in the city.
We went to a lovely contemporary craft market at Fed square, bought some nice stuff.

Looked at some vintage minis
Toby danced in the street in his new red shoes 

And we watched an old fashioned bike ride along the Yarra