Christmas Cake

It's tradition for my sister Lisa to make the family Christmas Cake which involves soaking the fruit in rum for a few weeks before Christmas and then she goes to Mum's place and they bake it together in her oven for hours. After the cake is cooked Lisa continues to pour rum over it leading up until the day she ices it. Her icing looks better and better every year and the cake is so moist and tasty which means another big success in the Christmas Cake department. Great job Lisa and Mum.

Under the Christmas Tree

We had a very exciting Christmas morning opening presents from Santa. James was so excited that he woke up at 2am and came in to see if it was time to go downstairs. I told him it was the middle of the night and he had to go back to bed. They both slept in until 6.30 am so that was great for me as they have been having 5.30 am starts these days. It was great to see them so excited to run into the lounge room to see what Santa brought. Here are a few pics from what was under the tree.

Christmas Decorations

A few years ago I bought this cute Christmas Santa and enjoy hanging him up each year. This holiday I bought myself 3 new little additions to the decorations and they are my chubby little snowman, santa and reindeer all with little springy legs. I think they are the cutest little things and Sienna likes joining them together so they are holding hands. It's great having kids to really enjoy the magical time of Christmas. I still can't believe it is only 6 more sleeps. The kids and I jumped into my bed tonight and we cuddled up watching The Polar Express instead of doing Christmas books.

Christmas Activities & December Daily

Yesterday we made some gingerbread biscuits but it was a fairly stressful experience with the kids each starting out by taking as many of the cutters each as they could and explaining to the other one that they had more!!! aaaahhhhh big breath...... I continued on with the activity and we did end up making some biscuits but was too exhausted to bother with any icing. Maybe next time when we are all a bit more relaxed.

Then today we had our good friends over to do our "Edible Christmas Trees" with 7 kids and 3 mums. This activity is a good activity, cheap and fun and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Afterwards we all had a swim followed by a cute little Christmas DVD called "The Flight Before Christmas" which the kids and I saw last year and I ended up buying it this year for them as it's so sweet. We had a very enjoyable day and a bit of quiet time in the afternoon before another swim.

Trimming the Tree 2010

This afternoon the kids and I and my sister set about to put up the Christmas Tree. It's a bit crazy with kids pulling things out of boxes, me trying to get the camera ready, me trying to get in on the act and enjoy it as well, kids thinking they know more about putting up a Christmas Tree than their mother but these are the funny Christmas memories that I love. Here's a few pics from our afternoon.