Christmas

The obligatory photo with Santa 

Well, we are at the end of the madness of Christmas and I finally have a breather to record how we spent it for 2015.

I had great intentions of spending the week leading up to Christmas in a festive way, and mostly this worked as all the kids were off school/daycare by the 18th. We watched oodles of festive movies, we listened to carols (pentatonix was the hit here this hear) and we did a lot of baking - well, that was mostly me, the kids just like icing them! 

Christmas with the vBC staff! 

Christmas with granny came first, with a lovely relaxed roast dinner outside on a beautiful summers evening. A few days later it was Christmas Eve and I gave the church message at the packed service, after a rocky tech start that left me a bit flustered it went well in the end. 

Christmas morning started at 6:30am - of course I woke first as usual! The girls woke Luke up because we like to open the stockings all together. We let them open one gift before church - this time we picked the one from Aunty Steph, knowing it was very special indeed and could be worn today. Aunty Steph had designed and made the girls each a beautiful outfit (Luke got a cool hat too) which they modelled with delight for the camera to show her in Auckland! After pancakes with Icecream, it was off to church. After church we opened our gifts to each other. I was delighted that this year the kids really enjoyed every single present, making a big fuss and getting excited about each gift. It made it all worth it! 

Bailey loved his new tug rope too! 

We took the dogs for a walk before heading out to the big (24 of us!!) family lunch held at the golf club cafe. It was such a wonderful afternoon, with happy cousins, lots of laughter and fun, loads of presents for all the kids and good food food food! 

By mid afternoon we were all stuffed and tired and packed up the masses of food. We decided to continue the eating and fun at our house for dinner and drinks. It was a leftovers feast followed by a hilarious game of heads up and tension. What a great day! I love a family Christmas with all the relatives together.