Boxing Day

What is Boxing Day? Well, it varies between countries & its celebrated mainly in Commonwealth Countries (UK, SA, Australia, Canada, NZ, Hong Kong, etc.). In South Africa its been renamed to the Day of Goodwill.

Growing up I never really knew what it was about except that it was the day after Christmas and it was a public holiday. So I looked it up and the following is from Wikipedia: "The name derives from the fact that the day is traditionally marked by the giving of Christmas boxes, or gifts, to services workers (such as service staff, postal workers and trades people) in the UK." Interesting but useless information.

We spent the day lazing around, drinking coffee, snacking on snacks and the kids played with their new toys and hung out together.

We had our Christmas dinner on Boxing Day which consisted of the traditional turkey and spiral ham and all the trimmings. The ham was a white elephant gift from our Adult Sunday School class Christmas party. (I'd originally got a $25 Potterybarn gift card but the ham was valued at $40 & hadn't bought one because of the price so I traded at the end of the party with the person who had the ham - she was delighted to have the gift card).

After dinner we ventured out into the cold and took the gang to see the 'very happy Christmas houses.' These homeowners go all-out and win competitions with their Christmas decorations and lights. Some of it is really nice while others are really tacky but its fun to go and see them all.

Christmas Day

The kids were up at 7 am and we'd told them not to wake us before then. With only having had a few hours sleep (we were decorating and wrapping), Warren and I were ready to go back to bed!

The Stocking Elf brought our stockings through to the living room.

Cullen finally got his Nintendo DS (from Santa)

Jordan got his Lego (from Santa)

The rest of the morning was spent playing with gifts and I started on a orange duck dinner for everyone. Because Cheryl and the kids were arriving from the UK later on, we decided we'd have a light meal and have the big Christmas dinner the next day.

At 2 pm we piled into 2 cars (our van only seats 7) and drove to the airport to get the family. The girls went in 1 car while the boys went in the other one and we yacked the whole way home.

We had a 2nd round of opening presents with Cheryl and the kids think it is a fantastic idea and want to add it to our Christmas traditions!

After a meal of lasagna, salad and garlic bread (a weird meal for Christmas Day...at least for me), we put the 3 little kids to bed and sat down to watch a movie.

It wasn't 10 mins before the Williams' clan were asleep (Lauren went a little longer than everyone else and is proud of it!).

Christmas Eve

We had an agonizing two and a half hr wait to see Santa at the mall (yes, he's real!!)

After the photo session, Jordan said "Mom, his beard is real...I looked closely and it came right out of his skin". So he's fairly convinced that this is the real Santa. He's by far the most beautiful Santa around - I've seen a few others at various malls and some of the look like they've trying to sober up from a good party the night before.

Our tradition on Christmas Eve is to go out to eat before the Christmas Eve service at our church. Chilis was the restaurant of choice this year - well, it was one of the few restaurants that was open but its always a good choice. We went to church for the Christmas Eve service which was very informal, reflective and festive - all at the same time.

Our tradition continues on as we watch The Polar Express together at home while drinking hot chocolate. Polar is one of the best movies around for kids, especially for Christmas Eve and I just love it.

Once the movie was over, we got the kids to bed (or rather, their sofas) and they were too excited to sleep at first, but dropped off quite quickly.

They had decided on sofas in the living room in the hope that they'd wake up during the night and see Santa.

...Santa Claus is coming to town...

Deck is Done!!

It all started with one plank that needed to be replaced. When Warren pulled it up, he saw a few more that needed to be replaced.

Within an hour the deck was stripped and one of the joists holding the deck up crumbled because of rot. And so the process of repairing and replacing began.

It took 4 months (from July) to get it finished. The problem was that Warren needed to be in California some of the summer and our church also had its 50th celebration which meant we didn't spend much time at home.

Also, Warren is a perfectionist so he does things really well - but it takes sooooo looooooong for him to get anything done. In the end friends surprised us by placing the Trex onto the new joists while we were on vacation so that when we got home, most it was done (see previous blog Awesome Surprise).

The last piece was to get the railings back up after painting them with the new weather proofing stain and a friend came over and helped with that too.

The deck looks fab and all we need now is some nice furniture and decent BBQ which we hope to get in the spring.

The side of the house looks like a reclamation site because all the old wood is piled there but Warren's going to make a walkway down the side of the house with the old wood so I'm looking forward to seeing that in about 2 years time :)

More Painting

3 days to go before Christmas, 2 rooms down and 3 more to go. We've painted the living room and kitchen/dining area. We have the loft, kids' rooms (both require all 4 walls painted plus rearranging because they've decided they don't want to share a room anymore) and 1 wall in our bedroom.

I've started on Cullen's room, having to paint a base color over the stripes that were there from when we decorated the room as a nursery for Jordan & Jordan's moving into the playroom.

The loft got a fresh coat of paint too and everything was moved into the walkway as we painted. It is a MESS!!

The boys have been sleeping in our bedroom for the last 2 nights because they have nowhere else to sleep - their beds are now dumping grounds for various things.

Both boys (and the dog) start out sleeping on our bed but then we move the boys to the sofa when we go to bed & Zulu is relegated to her bed in the laundry, not without lots of sulking from her.

We plan to have their rooms finished by Tuesday (fingers, toes and legs crossed on that!!) and then maybe I can decorate for Christmas!!