Merry Christmas

Lucy and Henry are both sick so they have missed out on a few Christmas events. It's a busy time for us so blogging is on hiatus for a while. Have a fabulous Christmas remembering Jesus birth.

Mamarama Christmas Parties

We enjoyed 2 Mamarama Christmas parties last week! The first was the mum's spa night where we got pampered with pedicures and manicures whilst eating chocolate dipped strawberries. The second was the family cookie exchange and ornament decoration craft. Both were lots of fun, thanks Alexis!

Christmas photos

Here is a photo of our Jesse tree. We cut off one of the lower branches of our Christmas tree and put it into some florist foam within this vase (covered over by aluminium foil). Our ornaments are pictures we printed out from the computer and then laminated. We used a star punch and some leftover 'hangers' to attach them to the tree. Each day we do our bible reading and Lucy hangs up an ornament. Here are some other things we're doing:

Listening to 'Christmas Offering' by Casting Crowns

Reading: 'Have you seen Christmas?' written by Vickie Howie

Watching: The Nativity Story

Eating: The perfect chocolate chip cookie, panettone and drinking hot chocolate

The photos below are of the manger and the nativity set.

Mike's Farm

On the weekend a large group of us from church headed north to visit Mike's Farm in Beulaville. We enjoyed a Southern country buffet dinner (fried chicken, biscuits, mac & cheese, green beans, pork loin, mashed potato and gravy) and then waited in line to see the Christmas lights. We had a long wait in the cold weather, wrapped up in beanies and scarves. The worst part was that the cold came up through your shoes! Finally we hopped aboard our tractor for our hayride around the farm to see the lights. And boy were there a lot of lights! Lucy and Henry had an awesome time looking around and Lucy didn't want the hayride to end (she particularly like the fake snow falling on us from the trees whilst the song 'let it snow' was playing). We forgot the camera so there aren't any photos but check out the Mike's Farm website for the light show.

Living Nativity 2009

It's been a busy week where I been trying to play catchup. It is Friday afternoon and I've finally got a little time to blog. Last weekend we were involved with our church in presenting a living nativity. Our family had the fun task this year of being Joseph, Mary, baby Jesus and an angel in the stable. The whole setup was enormous with Herod's palace, the temple, shepherds in a field, marketplace, inn, stable, adult Jesus praying, the cross and the tomb. Henry was Jesus for 1/2 hour on the first night, 2 hours on the second night and 3 hours on the third night. It was VERY cold but Henry was awesome. At one point he was squealing for attention - not because he was unhappy but just to see how big a crowd he could draw in. He cried for one group, laughed for one group and the rest of the time he just stared at all the people coming past. Our friend Maarten took some photos of the four of us. Lucy was bribed with 3 cupcakes (white, purple and pink icing) so that she would participate and smile. Although this was the 9th year of presenting the Nativity and over 1000 people attended this year it was also the last. It has certainly been a fun time for us, even on our wedding anniversary!

11th Wedding Anniversary

Tomorrow is our 11th wedding anniversary! It's the year for steel, jewelry or travelling to NYC. We'll be celebrating by being part of our church's Living Nativity. Come back Monday for an update. Ava good weekend.

Christmas plans

I've been following the '12 weeks to a peaceful Christmas' plan this year so everything has been thought out in advance and there is no last minute rush for Christmas (8 weeks done, 4 to go) I've already participated in one cookie exchange and there is alot of baking to go. Our December calendar is booked, the menu is planned (triple chocolate mousse cake for Jesus' birthday cake) and the presents are almost all wrapped. Looking forward to celebrating, playing games and eating. By the way our theme this year is 'camping'. Expect presents and activities to run this way.

I'll let you into two new traditions we're starting.

1. Manger. Under our Christmas tree is a rustic wooden manger that Andrew built. Each day during December some straw appears in the manger until it is full. On Christmas day a baby Jesus is lying in the manger amidst the presents and is a reminder of what Christmas really means.

2. Ornaments. Every year each child is given an ornament for the Christmas tree. The child decorates the family tree with their ornaments. When they leave home they are given a large box with their annual ornaments to take with them and start their own tree.