Christmas 2012

A three year old and a twelve month old 

are a lovely combination for generating Christmas spirit....

Oliver and Freya are practising being presents....

the excitement might be due more to the complete chaos 

throwing the shredded paper around creates rather than the idea of being a 'present'!

Advent

We thought Oliver would be old enough to understand the concept of advent and the counting down of days to Christmas.....

The empty nativity crib and the seasonal tree 

stand waiting for the characters to be discovered each morning.

Every morning Oliver and Freya would empty a pocket and place them in the crib or on the tree....

A collection of Christmas books was well thumbed as well as constant reinterpretations of the Christmas story involving the animals from Noah's Ark, several bins, bin trucks and lego dudes!

This is an inclusive household! 

We also caved in and got Oliver and Freya a Lindt advent calendar - thinking that they would like the idea of opening the little doors and we would like to eat the chocolate - 

Nope no chocolate eaten by parents - 24 pieces of chocolate eaten by children - 

next year we are not sharing our advent calendar with them!!!!!

The lead up to Christmas saw lots of useful box action - 

there were cards and presents to make for all of our teachers

Oliver had carefully decorated the box of chocolates for his preschool teachers with more yummy chocolates

there were Christmas cards to paint and stamp - next year no doubt Freya will be involved in the process!  She was quite keen to get involved this year, but seemed to spend more time eating the paint, card, brushes than creating!

The postman and Oliver are old friends - any day we are actually at home Oliver and now Freya are waiting for the postman.....he is such a sweetie he always finds something to give them even if it is just a flyer!

The postmas was kept very busy in December delivering lovely cards and presents for Oliver and Freya!

A tree is needed to place all the lovely presents under!

This is one of our little family's Christmas traditions - 

the picking up of the real tree two weeks before. 

The anticipation is building, we head off early, this is an annual fundraiser for a local charity and they seel the trees off the back of the semi-trailer. The tree is tested for shape and size and the decision is made....them smell is divine, the itching less so!

The decorated tree with the three (or is it four) angels!

Everyday Oliver would re-arrange the decorations on the tree

Freya would also help organise the decorations - 

her assistance involved less design and more destruction!

...and then Christmas had arrived

carols in the park - 

two very very very tired poppets!

The Christmas visitors arrived -

 no family resemblence here!

and the stockings were hung

and everybody went to sleep......

Christmas morning started with a lovely long walk by the beach - 

okay some people walked, some people rode their bikes and some people SNOOZED!

The presents were a hit - a whipper snipper and lawn mower for Oliver 

and a lawn mower for Freya!

Unfortunately the rain came tumbling down as the presents were opened, but that did not deter Oliver from trying out the whipper snipper!

The bubble lawn-mower was a hit with Oliver and Freya loved chasing the bubbles down the garden - YAY!


Christmas Day was lovely and relaxed filled with lots of simple things that reminded us how blessed we are!

The most wonderful moments were watching Oliver and Freya with each other, their aunt and uncle and Megan 

Boxing day was again lovely, Margi came on our early morning walk and 

got to see the solar fountain - 

an excuse to play in the water and to get wet !

 

The gingerbread house was decorated, carefully assembled and eaten!

The Boxing Day pizza is definitely going to be an ongoing tradition

and so is the very long afternoon walk and tree climbing 

Before Tom and Margi headed home, they worked very hard to install our art wall in the kitchen - it looks fabulous !


They could not leave without the traditional family photograph of Margi and Tom with Margi and Tom Bear!