Christmas holiday spirit!

It's been a glorious weekend here in the Bay - an absolute scorcher, lots of fun activities and best of all - Christmas festivities galore! 

Friday night we watched "the grinch who stole Christmas" with the kids, our first family Xmas movie, but not the last! It led us well into a weekend really focused on the Christmas spirit. 

On Saturday after the girls final swimming lessons for the year, we spontaneously decided to hit the beach - it was just too hot to stay home. Never mind it was already 11am and we had rehearsals for kings kids at 3pm - we had time to hang for a while in ahuriri! The kids just loved getting back to the beach - this was the first time for this summer we have made it, and although Marty is not a big fan, we both do love that the beach is the one place we can take the kids and really leave them to it - they amuse themselves with sand, water and each other, and we pretty much lie there and observe in peace! They had fun making a spa pool:"but how on EARTH can we make stairs!" I heard Kate pondering loudly! Luke stood and pondered the wide ocean for ages before venturing near it with me. But it wasn't long before he was lying in the shallow waves on his tummy yelling "Luke swimming! Luke swimming!" As he waved his arms furiously around in circles (still solidly on the sand)!

The next day we had our Christmas production in church. As long as the kids are on the stage, as director I don't really need to worry about anything else - their cuteness makes it awesome! Kate made a beautiful Mary, rocking her baby Jesus to the tunes of silent night. Jaimee was relieved to be an angel after swapping roles with Kate at the last minute (she didn't like Mary's costume!). 

Then we whisked off to Napier for Luke's barnardos home based care party. I was able to snap this lovely shot of him with his little buddies, here is grandma with her three charges: Luke, Sophie and Ben. Luke adores both Sophie and Ben, talking about them all the time, and was delighted to play at the park with them on a special day! 

Shortly after this photo of Luke and Sophie at the water/sand play, Luke decided to go swimming in the watery sand on the upper far right of this picture - soaking his clothes right through! Luckily we had a change of clothes in his nappy bag, because next it was off to havelock for Christmas carols in the domain.

Carols. Ahhhh...This is one of my favourite Christmas events! The girls had a blast with the important task of handing song sheets out to all the crowd, and as soon as the music started they were off to the front of the stage to dance the night away with all their wee mates from church. I begged them to come back to our mat and join me for a dance at one point - it's just not cool to dance all by yourself with no kids apparently, although I don't care - social etiquette didn't stop me from getting up and having a bit of a boogy though! Hehe. 

And here's one of me and my special "little sister" Katie! Katie is adored by my girls (actually, the whole family!) and comes after school and has tea with us most mondays, and today was her birthday so it was nice to celebrate with her :) 

Sun, beaches, carols, nativity plays, Christmas movies, sausages ....It's certainly "beginning to feel a lot like Christmas...."

 The only sad bit so far for me is the obviously dying tradition that I love so much - card exchanging! 10 days before Christmas and I have a whole 6 cards on my wall. Normally this hanger is overflowing with cards, but the last few years it's been less and less. It makes me a little sad because it's the one time of he year that I really look forward to checking the mail box each day. There is something special about knowing someone cared enough to send you a card. I know we are all busy, but ahh I do miss this one.  I sent out over 40 this year, it's one of our traditions to sit down as a couple and write out cards. To me, it's a little present for those we can't afford to buy for bit still want to acknowledge.

  Ah well, I guess that's the life we live in now. Facebook sentiments and Christmas shared video files, which are also lovely, if not as personal.  But for now, my girls painstackingly create and write out cards to their loved ones just like mummy does.