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I hope you had a fun New Year’s Eve. Maybe you went out, maybe you just went to bed early. I did a bit of both. 

Now that Christmas is over I feel like I’m on a bit of a holiday. Even though I’ve still been working my part-time days, I’m not having to come home and get Christmas stuff done. So my evenings are freed up.  At  the moment I’m just doing alot of lazing about drinking slushies out of Fraser’s Christmas present from Unky Boo. It’s the best.invention.ever. It reminds me of when I was a kid and my Nana would freeze containers of softdrink for me to eat with a spoon.   

Of course, the other reason I could be reminiscing about that is Fraser is spending this week with Matt’s parents. I dropped him off this morning and he’ll be home again at the end of the week.   Then he spends next week with my parents. And so begins, what may become, the regular school holidays routine.

Can you guess where Lincoln and I went today? 

Having made the trip to Sydney, I may as well go the extra distance and spend some quality time with IKEA. With Fraser out of the house I have the chance to makeover his wardrobe storage, delete some broken and unused toys from bedroom, and get it all ready for school stuff.

I bought a tall Antonius frame and drawers, and a storage box that fits on top of the Antonius. I’ll have to sort through lots of hand-me-down clothes the neighbour’s teenage sons gave us, move the too-small clothes out to Lincoln’s wardrobe, and sort through the crap on the top shelf. I found this cute little cat toy in IKEA that I had to get for Lincoln. It looks just like Cami.

I’ll have some fabric love to show soon. I’ve been gifted with an overlocker and some fabric stash from my mother-in-law, and there’s the surprise Christmas package of fabric and other crafty bits from Candi that I’m yet to document. And I really must complete our holiday tales of Adelaide!

..And what have you done?
Another year over.
A new one just begun.

Our Christmas was quite mellow and relaxed, in spite of the melodramatic start to Boxing Day. (It’s not Christmas without some sort of drama but the histrionics certainly seem to have peaked.) Mum and Dad arrived on Christmas Eve while I was at work and prepared all the meats, cooked a roast for dinner, and oiled the new fort!

We had a lazy Christmas Day with Lincoln sleeping in until around 7.30, when I couldn’t hold out any longer and I woke him up. We gathered around the Christmas tree and gave out our gifts. (I got a recycled paper making kit, as requested. Inspired by this post, at Jorth.) Followed later on, by a modest lunch buffet. We constructed new Lego, Magnetix, stole a quick snooze, and prepared for the Boxing day lunch with the in-laws.

Boxing Day lunch was also a relaxed affair and pretty quiet, as we didn’t have any other kids visiting this time. But that was made up for, in spades, when two of my former colleagues from Sydney, and their families, came to spend the weekend. We had a load of fun, and noise. The kids played spectacularly well together and we talked, played cards, drank, ate, and were generally merry. As usual, I’ve over-catered and we’ve mountains of leftovers to eat our way through.

This Christmas has brought the dawn of a new era. It seems alot of people are trimming back on the amount spent on gift giving. Choosing instead, to give hand-made or offer charitable donations. We’re considering spending Christmas with other Friends With Kids next year at a beachside destination,  with buckets of prawns and bread rolls.

2008 has been pretty good to us, on the whole, with a little sucktastic thrown in at the end. Here’s to 2009 being a better year for everyone. It will certainly mean big changes for us. Fraser will be at school and we’ll have a whole new juggling trick to perform. My goals for this year are to do more sewing, do some semi-regular weekend workshops in something crafty, get some landscaping done, and focus on helping Fraser get into a good domestic routine to carry him through his school years.

Do you have any goals?

  

 

The Night Before Christmas- Corinne Malvern, 1949-1980’s Cover

Originally uploaded by try-whistling-this

I have this book, though the cover is ripped. We’ll read it again tonight, put gingerbread cookies and lemonade out for Santa, and then go to bed early for a full night’s sleep.

Have a happy christmas.

Our elves (Matt and builder-friend, Tony) worked a hard day on Saturday putting up this great fort. They started at 11am and didn’t finish until 8pm. It needs to be oiled to protect it from the sun but I think it looks great. There was supposed to be some lovely turf underneath by now, but we hit a roadblock with the landscapers. That’s a story for another day but, needless to say, they’ve been given the heave-ho and we’re waiting for a couple of months before we attempt it again. Yay! for builder-friends because there’s no way Joe Blow can erect something like this single-handedly.

So the weekend (and yesterday), was for finishing off projects in time for Christmas, cleaning, and other Christmas preparations.

I baked Kourabiethes (Greek Shortbread), and packaged up our gingerbread men for Fraser’s special teachers.

..and I finished this long-standing sewing project - the seat for across the three IKEA Lack tables. I don’t recommend a decorative braided piping for a beginner. It was hard, and looks pretty wrong in parts, and the join is most bodgy, indeed. But near enough is good enough, as I always say, and at least I will have some spiffy looking impromptu seating for the Christmas season.

It’s Fraser’s last day at pre-school today. I think they have a little celebration with cupcakes for the kids that are moving on to big school. He tried on his new school uniform shirt yesterday and wouldn’t take it off.  I keep telling people I’ll be standing at the school gates on the first day with a party popper and glass of champagne,  but maybe I will be shedding a tear, after all.

…black & white Christmas.

The Christmas tree also has black and white decorations but with a young toddler and a new cat, the weighting of decorations is fairly top-heavy.

I’ve been baking gingerbread for gifts to pre-school teachers, people who have requested no gifts, and randoms that might turn up during our christmas/boxing day feasts.

(Next year we’re thinking ‘kids only’ across the board. Giftmas is getting out of hand. More baking and sewing may be on next year’s agenda.)

To kick off our Christmas celebrations, Fraser won a gorgeous gingerbread house from his pre-school raffle.