So, that was Christmas. Woosh and its gone. All those "how many sleeps till its Christmas", all the Jingle Bells we suffered. All for one day of festivities. Adam wanted to know last night how many sleeps until the next Christmas. I was very tempted to shoot myself on the spot.
As you know, 'gifts' is not my love language. I would FAR rather get (and give) gift vouchers one can use to buy exactly what one wants. The whole gift-choosing, gift-wrapping thing does not make me jolly. However, I make an effort for the kids sake. This year I did really well, I managed to get all the gifts in two outings. One outing was with Max, which scores a million bonus points for bravery. I asked Rose to keep the gifts in her room because Adam has the most amazing knack of ferreting out hidden gifts and sweets from even the most hidden place in the house.
The gifts were bought and well hidden, the tree was up. I had fielded increasingly difficult to answer questions about the logistics and theoretical discrepancies of Father Christmas (FC). Christmas cheer was well intact. Of course the gifts weren't yet wrapped but there were at least 10 sleeps until Christmas. Things were going well.
(Remember the loveys that Adam and Kate had as babies? We still have them. I have bought 36 of them and we are now down to two. They don't make them any more (Woollies used to make them, if anyone finds any anywhere, I will pay good money for two more). They are no longer allowed to leave the house. They absolute love their 'babas'. PS how cute were the twins when they were babies!! Love that pic)
Unfortunately, Adam's nose for hidden treasures proved too much of a match and the kids FOUND the stash of gifts in Rose's room. I almost cancelled Christmas right there and then. Luckily, half of the gifts were still in the plastic bags so they didn't see all of them. So now they believe that FC brought half the gifts and the other half came from Rose. Whatever. My fault for not wrapping them as soon as I bought them.
Of course I left the gift wrapping to the last minute and Christmas Eve found Marko and I sitting on the lounge floor wrestling too small pieces of wrapping paper over bulky, pointy gifts.
May I just say here that Marko is not a good last-minute gift wrapper. Last minute gift wrapping requires more speed and less precision. By the time I had wrapped three gifts, Marko was still s l o w l y and painstakingly perfectly folding the corners of the wrapping paper over three times. I wanted to climb over the pile of gifts and shove the sellotape up his bum. Not that I was in a irritable mood or anything like that. But by 9pm the gifts were wrapped, the milk, cookies and carrots were half eaten and clues of Santa's presence was well evidenced.
Christmas day started at Sparrow's Fart. It wasn't yet 6am and we had opened all the presents.
Adam's best gift: a paintball gun thing that shoots paint every where. Kate's best gift: An ant pod science thing (a nest like thing that you put live ants inside). Max's best gift: a pink shopping cart.
Marko got each other the same thing! In fact, it was the same thing we got each other for our birthdays and for last Christmas too - nothing. We really are terrible! So unromantic. In our defence, we buy each other (and ourselves) gifts all the time.
We went for lunch at Moyo at Spier. It was really nice to be with Sister Mel and her kids and with my parents. but it was DAMN hot under the tents and I thought it was very over priced. R350 odd per person, no drinks. Expensive. But, as I said - it was really nice to be together. I am hoping that next year Sister Nina is here for Christmas then we can make her cook. She is the food expert in the family.
My dad, Sister Mel, her daughter Rebeka and my mom. So good to have my parents healthy and happy at Christmas! We've had to deal with some pretty big hits the past few Christmases.
I really do sound like the Christmas grinch, don't I? I'm sorry. I do make an effort for the kids, but it feels terribly hypocritical to get all romantic and traditional about Christmas when (a) I am not religious and (b) we are not big on traditional things like that. We will create our own family 'traditions' and things we like doing.
Well campers, that's it for now. I hope you had a good Christmas if you celebrate it and that you were filled a bit more of the festive cheer than I was. I leave you with this last pic of my biggest boy and my littlest boy. What a handsome pair they are.
hello lovely;
1) yes they were v. cute as babies and still are.
2) take heart...seb and the trips are now old enough to reason (9,6,6,6) and this year we told them the gifts were hidden in our room and if they nosed around they WOULD find them and they had two choices -- they could either a) be surprised when they found them or b) be surprised on Christmas day.
3) we don't wrap Christmas presents. we have four "santa sacks" that all presents go in. charles distributes the presents to each child. the kids think we are environmental, we know we are lazy.
4) yes, your youngest and your hubbie are gorgeousness.
Posted by: tess | 26 December 2010 at 03:21 PM
Looks like the kids had an awesome Christmas! You're very brave getting FC to bring them a paint ball gun!! Much braver than me
Posted by: Jeanette Verster | 26 December 2010 at 10:38 PM
I just love the picture of Max with the shopping cart, he looks like he is going to blast off! And are those kitty wiskers I see on his cheeks? :)
We tried fabric gift bags instead of wrapping. It was done in a snap and way less garbage after.
Merry Christmas.
Posted by: SherryGreens | 27 December 2010 at 07:26 AM
Love the pics! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I hate last minute Christmas wrapping too!
Posted by: Heather | 27 December 2010 at 08:09 PM
Great pics... I'm afraid we're not much into Christmas either, but we make a bit of an effort for the family.
And actually, R350 is very reasonable for a Christmas Lunch. There were places who charged over R600. I know, because we looked for a Christmas Eve venue- ended up paying R420 per person, which included a welcome drink and a glass of port with the cheese platter.
Posted by: Hanlie | 27 December 2010 at 09:56 PM
Hey, whattya moaning about, r350 is only £33 and it cost our family £60 each!!! You got a bloody good deal mate !! Thinking about travelling to SA one Christmas as the weather is so good. This year going to India!
Posted by: Debbie | 27 December 2010 at 11:25 PM
We were wrapping gifts till about 3 in the morning on Christmas eve/day!! Serves me right for leaving it till the last minute. Hubby and oldest son fell asleep in front of the tv earlier and I fell asleep putting M to sleep so woke up at midnight to wrap gifts!! And I have the same issue, hubby is a perfectionist and I just want to get the gifts wrapped already! The kids really don't care how well they are wrapped, actually the worse they are wrapped the easier they are to open!
Posted by: Vannessa | 28 December 2010 at 10:05 AM
Looks like a wonderful holiday.
Posted by: Soapstone Countertops | 28 December 2010 at 03:45 PM
I do ALL the shopping/wrapping in our family. Son gets fun gifts, hubby gets underwear/socks and I get whatever-I-want-to-wrap-and-put-under-the-tree (that I bought for myself, of course).
Boy in that picture of Kate/Adam as babies, I sure do see where Max & Adam look alike. Definitely brothers! You have gorgeous kids!
Posted by: sheilah | 29 December 2010 at 11:15 PM
Next year let the kids track Father Christmas online as he arrives in each country (works on timelines). Very exciting to see him move across the planet on Google Earth for kids. You can track on your mobile too.
Go to this link:
http://www.noradsanta.org/en/index.html
Posted by: Nola | 02 January 2011 at 09:55 AM
Merry (belated) Christmas, and Happy New Year, Tertia!
If it's any help to you, in my extended family Santa Claus does not wrap gifts. He piles them up under the tree in a gorgeous display, and the children's eyes bug out of their heads with joy when they walk into the room and see, not just boring old gift wrapping, but actual TOYS under the tree! Woohoo! (And SO much easier than gift wrapping everything!) :-)
Glad you got through it successfully!
Posted by: Beth | 03 January 2011 at 12:01 AM
Does not mean to stop caring, it means you can't do it for someone else!
Posted by: Coach Accessories | 17 January 2011 at 09:05 AM