I have been struggling to get into the Christmas spirit this year, partly because I just haven't had the energy and also because half of our family will be away for Christmas and we will not be having the rest of the family here for lunch. We will be going to our son and d-i-l's for Christmas tea and we are looking forward to seeing them and the grandchildren but I do love to do the "big" lunch and usually enjoy all the preparations leading up to Christmas.
We have been very fortunate that both our adult children live within an hour of our place and I know that as families grow it isn't always possible to be together and we have planned to all get together after Christmas.
Last week I decided to try to get into the spirit, and no I didn't get into the Chivas Regal, but got out all the decorations and made an effort to decorate the house and put the tree up. This was quite a task, and even trying to find everything was interesting as I thought I had put all the decorations together in one cupboard but not everything was there so then I had to have a clean out of other places and of course this took more time and energy, but it also gave me time to think about all the good times we have had at Christmas and a few not so good, but life is like that and I try to focus on the good things in life.
Some of my favourite Christmas tree decorations -
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| A Christmas ornament from our Baltic holiday |
As I was unpacking all the decorations it brought back great memories of our holidays when I buy an ornament to decorate the tree.
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| As you can see this one is from Harrods in London |
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| A cute little wombat from our holiday in Western Australia |
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| From London |
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| From a Zurich market |
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| From Canada |
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| Another from a cousin in Canada |
When each of the grandchildren were born I bought an ornament and had their names put on them so they now have a spot on the tree and they love looking for their bauble.
Now the tree is up and decorated, and the front of the house has new flashing icicle lights and looks so pretty. A few houses in our street have decorations too although ours is definitely low-key compared to many in our area, but we're happy with it and don't need to compete for the best lights in the suburb.
Once the decorations were up I decided to get some baking done and invited some girlfriends over for afternoon tea. In my group of friends a few have lost their husbands in the last couple of years and it is difficult for them at this time of year so I thought a get-together would help make the time a bit easier. Today they all came over for champagne and nibbles and we had a great afternoon, a lot of talking and laughing too.
We have had our two little granddaughters for a sleep-over and it has been great fun spending time with them. We decorated some ornaments with lots of sparkly stuff and wrapped a few presents for them to give their mum and dad. After dinner we drove around to see the Christmas light displays in our neighbourhood. Some streets were fantastic with almost every house lit up with wonderful lights.
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| Two of our little grandchildren enjoying the lights |
I think that I have definitely got into Christmas now and am really looking forward to the big day.
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