Shhhh! Don't tell!

It seems somebody decided to get in early.  Last year Santa sent Bianca and Caitlyn a note to remind them to do their Christmas list and then he shared a wonderful secret that they are able to "post" their letter to him by simply putting it inside the fireplace (obviously with no fire at the time) and then knocking 3 times on the outside.  And what do you know?  The next morning their letters were gone!  Wow!  So this tip must have stuck and last night Bianca decided it was that time again.  Time to get her list ready and sent off.

So on her list she has:

A phone.  (I guess my little girl is growing up...)
Harry Potter 7 part 2 / Harry Potter 6
A bedside lamp
Goosebumps books and DVDs
Craft stuff
Stationery
A new bike
And a times table chart

Yes, I was a little surprised about the last one.  I don't think it is usual for kids to ask for something like this for Christmas. 

What are your kids hoping to get for Christmas?

A very exciting project!

This afternoon after I got Caitlyn from daycare I had to quickly pop into The Warehouse.  And guess what - apart from all the Rugby World Cup merhandise, they have started putting out Christmas lollies and advent calendars.  I think as soon as the Rugby World Cup is finished we'll start seeing Christmas trees and decorations and all sorts of other things.  And we are only in the middle of September...

I must admit I am really excited for Christmas.  I have a Christmas project in mind where I will take Bianca and Caitlyn and a new friend called Sarah and we'll go and deliver some gifts to some of the kids who will be stuck in hospital.  We'll probably have to dress up in some sort of dress-up, just for fun.  So now Sarah and I are on a mission to see if anybody would like to donate some gifts.  Sarah also has a few other great ideas. 

So far I've had a few offers from people who are keen and so I guess my project will now be turned into a community effort rather than an individual effort :-).  So if you are interested to donate something - please email me at Leawhite2109@gmail.com.  Feel free to opt for the present to be an anonymous donation or you might want to include your name on a card.  Please keep in mind that the ages will range from tiny little babies right through to teenagers.  And there are parents and siblings also.  I would prefer gifts to be suitable for kids who are stuck in hospital - so books, craft activities, play dough, games, a soft toy - that sort of thing.

So let me know if you might be interested.  What are your Christmas plans?

So who has started thinking about Christmas yet?

I know it is only September, but Christmas is only about 3 months away.  And right about this time is usually when shops start hauling out their Christmas stuff to tempt the buyers into gearing up for the Christmas season. I haven't seen it happen just yet, but I'm sure pretty soon the Christmas trees and decorations will start going on display.

As a matter of fact I have started thinking of Christmas.  For one I want to do the little boxes again.  Not only was it a lot of fun, but it meant that we could do some quality activities again.  And of course the girls were able to experience the true meaning of 'giving'.  So that means I have to make little boxes again.  They didn't all stay nice unfortunately so I can't really re-use them and if I start now then I will have more preparation time to come up with some fun activities.  We will definitely deliver biscuits again to one of the local retirement villages (and in fact just next week Bianca will do this too as part of one of her home learning challenges).  But along with that I am also thinking of getting a few small presents together that the girls and I will take to the children's ward at Wellington Hospital and deliver it there.  I remember when we were stuck in hospital how frustrating it felt at times so maybe we might be able to brighten some children's day.

Speaking of Christmas - If you are looking for the perfect stocking filler - Bianca's teacher, Paul Forster is selling his picture book titled 'You're not eating me' that he wrote and published (how cool is that?).  It is this really cute story beautifully illustrated and along with it is a CD with 12 songs that Paul wrote including the 'You're not eating me' song!  Bianca has a copy that her teacher gave to her for her birthday and it is definitely one of her favourite things!  And I bet if you ordered a copy and asked Paul, he would even be happy to write a special message for the recipient.  Just think you can give somebody a signed copy of this book! How special!  To order or to get more information please email jo.paulf@paradise.net.nz.

Celebrating Christmas

The night before Christmas we put out the stockings - for the 4 of us as well as Terence's brother who came to visit us.

The kids put out cookies and milk for Santa and carrots and water for the reindeer.


And then they woke up so early. Usually we have to wake Bianca up, but not on Christmas morning, she was the first one to wake up. And then? Then it was time for presents (how exciting!)

My mum made this very cool puppet.
Bianca was so excited that Santa brought her the guitar she asked for. And it is pink!!!! (So now Bianca will have to learn to play)

Then we had a huge Chrismas lunch. We didn't do turkey because that would have just been way too big for the 5 of us, so instead did some chicken and a small leg of pork with the usual rice, potatoes and vegetables and afterwards pavlova as part of our dessert.

I'm not all that good with interior decoration, but I tried to make our table look nice and festive.

I even added some little pohutukawa branches which is from the pohutukawa tree (also known as the New Zealand Christmas tree)


Bianca enjoyed reading the little jokes that came with the christmas crackers:


"Cheers!"

And then in the afternoon we took advantage of the sunny day (even though it wasn't overly warm):


And that is our Christmas celebrations - in a nutshell :-)

Luck

I'm probably one of the most unlucky people in the world. I never ever win anything.

I'm so unlucky that once at the one company where I worked, I was one of 60 secretaries and once a month we'd meet together in the board room and they would arrange some speakers and often have demonstrations or lucky draws and it would be a great way to connect and share ideas and concerns. So this one time we all had to write our names on little pieces of paper and put it in a container for a lucky draw. The one girls was heavily pregnant and already sitting so she asked me if I could please write down her name on her behalf. Which I did. And then when they drew out the names (just my luck) - they picked her name. The name I wrote for this girl.

I'm the one who would still be dialing the number for the radio station when they already announce the winner. So yes, I simply am not all that lucky.

Now Terence is much luckier than me. He seems to always win something when his work has lucky draws. He's won a huge parcel before filled with all sorts of goodies, the next time he won a 1L bottle of French Champaigne and recently he won a new digital camera (okay not a very good camera as all photos pretty much comes out blurry). But that is how lucky he is :-).

Anyway, recently one of the blogs I follow had a giveaway and asked that people leave a comment. Which I did, but not thinking that I would even be considered. And what do you know? My name was selected and I won this beautiful food cover which will come in soooo handy now over Christmas. Thank you so much Enchanted Moments!


And this morning I was listening to Classic Hits on the radio on the way back from dropping Terence and Bianca off at the train and Caitlyn at daycare and when I got back home they asked that people text in their feedback on a question they asked. So I did. And about an hour later I got a call. My name was drawn and I won this cool Christmas Stocking:


There is a teddy bear from Kirkaldie and Stains - this amazing shop in Lambton Quay. If you are ever in Wellington you must make sure you go and see Kirkaldie and Stains. Usually they have THE most amazing Christmas window displays and they even have a door man who welcomes you when you visit them. Anyway inside the stocking is also a notepad and pen set, a fancy Christmas pen, a CD from Guy Sebastian, a little Santa decoration, a little tin of family jokes, some candy canes, 2 Christmas crackers and probably 5 tickets to see the 20/20 Cricket Match on Monday.

Wow! I feel so lucky! Thank you Classic Hits for choosing me!

The frustration of new irons

Bianca's first day on holiday was a pretty quiet day mostly spent at home. We went to the shops for a bit so that I could take back the iron that didn't work very well that I bought to replace the iron I had a long time that finally decided to stop working. To put it this way, for the first time in my life I burnt Terence's shirt (and it was one of his favourites too) - with the new iron that was supposed to be soooo much better than the one I had before. They say it easily glides over all sorts of fabric - not so much this morning. Sigh! So I took it back and exchanged it for another one and hopefully this one will be better. Will see tomorrow morning. Bianca also wanted to go and choose Caitlyn something for Christmas (from Bianca) and then it was time to come back home again. Right now I'm not too keen on the mad crowds at the shops, and with only 9 days till Christmas I think it will just get worse. So I'm limiting my visits to the shops as much as possible. We're mostly ready and it is just now figuring out what we will eat on Christmas day.

Tomorrow will be a long day for us again as we make our way to the city to get bloods done and then in the afternoon Bianca's appointment with her doctor to see that we are all on track still. At the moment our visits are every 2 months, so if all goes well then the next one will only be in February again.

I'm feeling really tired tonight, so will be heading off to bed soon! Will post an update after Bianca's hospital visit tomorrow.

A discussion - fake / real?

Today was a pretty busy day for us and in a way it ended up good that Caitlyn didn't do her ballet show otherwise it would have been much busier. This morning Bianca went to a birthday party and Caitlyn and I waited at home until it was time to get her. During that time I started planning the costume Bianca might be wearing on Monday for her class Christmas singalong (it is meant to be something red and green). Then it was time to get Bianca and we all set off to the CCF Christmas party. It was such a lot of fun and it was so good to catch up with all the other oncology families. We got there a little bit late, but the kids had a chance to listen to story time with Fairy Trina (or something like that), get a balloon from the clown and Bianca also got to decorate a biscuit. They had a small petting zoo, a bouncy castle and unfortunately the line was too long for facepainting.


And then the highlight - Santa arrived! Bianca looked at him as he got seated on his special chair and she said "he's fake. I know he's fake". I ignored the comment because I wasn't in the mood to go into a whole discussion about whether Santa is real or not, especially since Caitlyn very much still believes. And then Santa called Bianca's name and she went up, got her present and when she came back said "wow! He's the real Santa". Turned out this Santa had a real beard and so of course he must be Santa. I couldn't help smiling!

I wanted to take a whole lot of photos today, but unfortunately the flash on our camera decided to stop working. How frustrating!

The downside of being organised...

You know, this is the first year in as long as I can remember where I have been incredibly well organised with our Christmas preparations. At the start of November I finished the Christmas shopping for our family in South Africa and I sent it so that it would get there well ahead of time. I have finished the kids shopping and they are ready to be wrapped and put under the tree (which I won't do until there is about 2 or maybe 1 week left so that it won't be too much torture for the kids ;-) ). I know what Terence wants and will be getting it later this week. We are having lots of fun with our advent calendar and I have already started thinking about our Christmas day meal.

Now I find it quite ironic that the one year I am this organised with plenty of time to spare, it is starting to look like our Christmas parcel to South Africa is taking way longer than it should and I already have nightmares that it will go missing somewhere (and since it is sent Economy there is no tracking on it). And I won't be surprised because about 6 years ago I wrote my mother an actual letter and sent it to her in the mail and I don't think it ever arrived and since then I don't have much faith in the South African postal service, even though so far we've been lucky each time we sent Christmas parcels. When I went to send our parcel to South Africa the guy behind the counter asked me how often we send to South Africa and I explained that it is pretty much Christmas and for the kids birthdays and he then asked "and it arrives every single time?" Hmmm...

Sigh! I keep hoping that it will arrive any day now.

If anybody knows of a proper online gift shop in South Africa, please let me know. Kalahari is not suitable because books, CDs and DVDs are difficult to buy when you haven't seen somebody for a long time and ideally I would have liked to be able to buy from a place like Woolies as they have great ordinary gifts, but last time I checked they didn't do gift wrapping. Or maybe this could be a great business opportunity? ;-)

Counting down the days

Can you believe that Christmas is only 1 month away? Wow, I can't believe it. This year has gone so incredibly fast. It feels like every month just goes faster and faster. And it doesn't help that the stores start decorating for Christmas pretty much from October. I must say that I'm feeling a bit flustered at the moment. There is just so much going on that at times I'm really worried we are forgetting something. I can't wait for schools to close 15 December when hopefully things will finally start slowing down a bit.

This year I have decided I want a bit more of an exciting build-up for the kids that will focus on not only the whole countdown to Christmas day, but incorporate things that will focus on quality and fun family time and even (if all my plans go as I'm hoping) give them an opportunity to truly experience "giving". So this is what I want to do. I'm busy making small little cardboard boxes that will resemble little presents. I will be making 48 so the kids can each have 24 to help them count down. I will then put them into a Christmas Tree shape like this image which I saw on this website:


I considered making the boxes look like little drawers as in the picture, but if we do little boxes with lids, then not only is it exciting to open, but you can put the lid underneath the box after you opened it and this way easily see how many more is left. Especially for Caitlyn who doesn't really have a concept of time just yet.

Then just as a usual advent calendar we'll put something sweet in, but then I'll also be putting some notes with fun activities we can do together in each of the boxes. Some activities will be fairly quick, because until the 15th the kids are still in school and they have their after-school activities and so on (Caitlyn goes to daycare actually until the 23rd). Other activities will be much longer like baking cookies and making salt dough Christmas Tree decorations and so on. So now if my plans go as I'm hoping, then I want the kids to make biscuits and paint / draw pictures that we can then go and deliver at one of the retirement villages. The kids love baking and I know they'll feel so proud to share their creations and this way they'll truly experience "giving". That it is not about getting something in return, but simply to do something to brighten another person's day.

My goal is to give the kids their advent calendars on the 1st of December so fingers crossed I manage to finish it in time! I'll post pictures once I'm done.

What will you be doing this Christmas time?