Our Kiwi Christmas

There are some things that stay the same year after year...tradition..and i love it. Sometimes you start a tradition without even knowing it when it is done the first time. The photo below is a mailbox in the rural outskirts of hastings that is dressed up like this a few days out from Christmas. The owners have been doinf this for a few years now and I knew I had to capture it on film asa this has become one of our Christmas icons. It is normaly there when we pass it to pick up our Christmas tree which is another couple of miles down the road.  And wouldnt you know  it the images folder on blogger seems to be doing its own thing!!Oh well next time maybe I can get the photo!!

And so Christmas Day arrives and it is hot..really hot..but not humid..a miracle! After  a large lunch and dessert that lasted for a few hours, several games of cricket, children running around with their own games, we headede to the river down the road to cool off.

Alex chose this shirt for her Daddy...everyone liked it.

 And then boxing day came around and it was into our own pool for the girls..their are no photos becasue mum and Dad had completely passed out from exhaustion and heat and humidity(again)....

The day after boxing we all went to Napier to good friends for a delicious tea.....our fourth ham so far..and Ive lost count of the pavlovas consumed. Before all this we went to Ocean Spa to swim..honestly it is so hot the only place to be is in the water.

Today it is very humid again and I am waiting to get into the pool after this post. It is VERY windy and our Park is a major devastation of broken limbs and felled greenery. I tried to get the wind in this photo but it may be hard to see..

 And then the wind blew in this flash flood of a storm!! The girls are in the pool and loving it.

 Playing a new Monopoly game . Santa left this for Alex . It has a electronic credit card system instead of cash and when you pass go you get 2 million!! Georgia has bought lake Taupo and the Waitangi Treaty grounds. It is at this point that The gorgeous hubby in  uniform takes interest...We are having a game tonight.. I hope to win some farm land....

I sewes a whole lot of ornaments..none of which Ive been able to post :( but this one did, I hand made the wreath and stamped the card and rustically finished it off with baling twine!

Til next time

Swimmingly yours

Cherry

A harvest complete in time for Santa

I hope Santa catchces sight of these beautiful garlic bulbs harvested this morning. As for me, I am so excited. This is my first success growing garlic!!

This December has been sooooo stressful, what with sickness, hospital stays, no money due to sick leave and other very stressful things not written here. However tonight is Christmas eve and (I think) it is all sorted. It will be lovely and lovlier to leave the stress ehind and I say that with some sadness as usually Christmas is THE season for me.

I wish you and yours a very happy Christmas and we here will be enjoyiong the eve movies on Tv with KFC and also I will be sewing little felt ornaments(!!!) Typical!

Happy Christmas wishes

Love Cherry

Scrapping the Chrissy photos

And so here are some of the Christmas scrapping pieces I have done..I havent included all of them. I have really enjoyed doing these and there are plenty to do. Im hoping for some Scrapping vouchers this Chrissy!! Actually i went into the scrapping shop and there on the wall was a tremendous piece on canvas. It was gorgeous!!! Anyway it is going to be a class in Feb 2011. I have my name down! The cost is $70.00 so Ill be putting money on it bit by bit so it will be less painful then paying as I leave the class. It really is so beautiful, a comination of shabby chic and antique with the three photos in sepia to match the colours of the canvas. YUM!!

At my none oclock walk about, feeding the chickens and having to slosh through the mud that is their run at the moment, I took a moment to have a small harvest. One egg, four strawberries, one chicken (Pokey the jumper) on the nest, and then I went to my two much neglected old packing boxes, filled with straw and grass clippings, racked apart by the chooks, not watered at all then when i remembered watered into a drowning frenzy and so i was pleasantly surprised to see this little gold mine of new tatties there. plus one of the boxes was filled with fat juicy worms, so many in fact that it reminded me of a worm farm (which by the way i want)..I think I will add a few piles of old straw and some food scraps to this because the composition that has gone in this is quite unbelievable.

And finally to finish here is Alex in hospital. less her heart. She was so sick. She still has a cough but all her antibiotics are finally finished and she went for her first post sickness swim the other day..she has missed the pool so much!

Happy scrapping and harvesting
Love Cherry

Another posting finally

...But I have an excuse. Whilst looking forward to Christmas and all that holds with that small frission of fear financially, Alex took REALLY sick and got pneumonia. She was in hospital for five days and this was after four days of illness at home. So on her admission we were both fully exhausted!! I stayed with her all the time with a bit of a swap with GHIU and georgia to go home shower, buy some self sufficiency magazines and Christmas special magazines and rush back again. Then when Alex got out and was still recovering I immediately got the flu and bronchitis....it was ggoing around and I went straight to the Dr for antibiotics as I didnt want to end up in Hospital, but I ended up sleeping for days straight, and a week off work (Boo Hoo bank account), then Georgia starts to cough......lets just say I wasnt leaving the surgery without antibiotics.!!! Amazing how many children and adults have succumbed to this bronchitis bug in the last feww weeks although Alex was the most severe.

And so we got the Christmas tree and can I say it is beauty, but we were all too miserable to decorate it properly. it took days, not even the children got into it!! Talk about a miserable run up to Christmas....

I am slwly making up for lost time, although this year will be bereft of my Christmas cake and other goodies. I will however soon be cooking up lots of pavlovas for Christmas Day cel;ebrations in the country with family. It seems the most ovious thing to do with my chickens laying happily!

We finished School yesterday at 12pm....oh the bliss in that. This morning we were having a busy sleep in and were flat out (literally). Its a gorgeous feeling six whole weeks of holidays in front of us. I hope I can save up enough peenies to buy a large tent (rather than our two small ones) and go away at some point. I have willing house/chook/cat sitters arranged!

I have also been scrapping previous Christmases. It seems so much easier to do while in the middle of Christmas moods! I really will post some pics when I can locate my camera!

The rain has been falling finally in between great yawning banks of humid and heat and my garden is producing its first raspberries, strawberries, its first zuccini..trying to become a marrow, the garlic is looking thick and strong and I am immensely proud of this and am looking forward to the shortest day to harvest (when is that?). What else have i had, well there a re weeds aplenty, it is wild jungle out there, and when I can battle out into the humidity and sweat profusely for a short while while I pull out weeds and wild wheat

the chooks get that plus some silver beat gone to seed. Tommorrow i am going to dig out the potatoes that didnt do so well (How could they covered in lawn clippings and scavenged and dug up by the chooks. Who knows if there will be any treasure?)  Also have a date with the chook area..a serios date one that right now in the cool of the night seems inviting but by tomoorow will seem less so!
I should go and get some sleep . Although I havent been blogging i have been reading others and its lovely to see the English and Americian season preparations. So cold there right now....we are melting here!

WIshing you a warm Chirstmas run up
Love Cherry