Christmas!!! Have I mentioned it's the most wonderful time of the year???!!!! ;)

We have our Christmas tree.... and it looks fabulous, if I do say so myself (even if there does appear to be a slight lean......) The Christmas tree farm is no longer, so you may be relieved to know I didn't have to traipse around with an axe and fell my own tree. There was still adventure to be had in fitting the Christmas tree in my little hatchback and driving home with it sticking out the passenger window. Further adventure was had as I carried it out of the car and up the stairs of our unit and lifted it over a security gate thing (designed to stop Mr 2 falling down long flight of stairs). The kids were extremely excited by the tree and frolicked at my feet which was not such a helpful thing at the time......

Handy Hint Number 39: There is absolutely no point vacuuming your floor before carrying a real Christmas tree into your loungeroom. No point.

Anyway... it is in..... and decorated. There are three different sets of lights which is good because when you consider all the globes that are not working it adds up to the quantity of about one set of lights.

Handy Hint Number 40: It may well be wise to completely unwind the set of Christmas lights to check for broken globes before hanging them on the tree. It is not, however, wise to do this when you have young children.

May I just add that if I am ever rich I am going to have a Christmas light globe checker-er. Checking each globe to determine which one is broken would easily rank as one of the most tedious and annoying tasks in the world. For me it is up there with chopping up pumpkin as one of my pet-hates!!!

I have photographed the kids in their Santa suits and created the annual Christmas card. I went and got them printed and dropped into my dear zany crazy friend Ms E to get her opinion. Her comment: 'They're completely lame but cute'. Not perhaps the best feedback when you've stayed up to 3.30am to do it. (It wouldn't have taken so much time if I knew how to work Adobe Photoshop. A course in that is on my list of things to do.....)

Ms E redeemed herself by coming over to see the Christmas tree and cook me dinner. Yee haa! I was pretty happy! She laughed at me every time I caught a glimpse of the tree and exclaimed how beautiful it was. (By the way, don't houses look nice with all the fairy lights all over them. I wish you could have fairy lights all year round). Ms E was a little less than happy when I turned a Christmas CD on. It turns out she's not a fan of Christmas carols. She could not believe it when her new boyfriend came over and started playing the guitar to my Christmas CD and singing along. She commented that two people who she spends significant time with (me and her boyfriend) are both into Christmas carols, and it obviously proves God has a sense of humour!

OK, so my goals for the week:
Christmas tree Tick (although on a slight lean and many globes not working)
Christmas cards Tick (although apparently completely lame, and only a few have been written in so far...... and count yourself lucky if you made 'the cut' this year, due to financial constraints!!)
Christmas cakes Tick (well, they're started. The dried fruit is marinating in brandy.....)

Yes, it may be lame, but I love Christmas! (And there's nothing wrong with that!!)