Only a few more days until Christmas! The house is abuzz with Christmas preparations.

I finished my Christmas shopping last month, but the presents weren’t wrapped until this week. I did most of it in one evening. No fancy wrapping or tags this year, as most of the presents are for kids (ours, neices & nephews, friends’ children, etc). The adults in my family and Rob’s family do the “Secret Santa” thing, where each person pulls a name from a hat and buys only for that person. We’ve been doing it for 3 or 4 years and it’s absolutely brilliant. Makes shopping so much easier! In my family, we also write “wish lists” and then Mum photocopies them for everybody, so it’s impossible to go wrong!

Christmas baking is high on my list of priorities at the moment. I usually give baking to our friends for Christmas. This year I have purchased really cute Christmas biscuit tins which I will be filling with Chocolate Chip Cookies, Snickerdoodles, Chocolate Shortbread, Debbie’s Spicy Nuts and Tanya’s Peanut Butter Balls. Today I made the Spicy Nuts, Peanut Butter Balls and Snickerdoodles. Tomorrow I’ll make the other stuff.

On Christmas Day this year, lunch will be at my sister’s place with Mum, Dad & Grandma. Then later that afternoon, we’ll drive up to Whangarei (a 2-hour drive) for Christmas dinner with Rob’s family!
We used to do that (i.e. have lunch here and then drive up to Whangarei for dinner) a lot BC [before children] but this will be the first time we’ve done it since having the kids. Hopefully they’ll be really tired and will sleep most of the way. It’s going to be a long day for them, but they’ll really enjoy having Christmas with all 6 of their cousins, and staying a few nights at Gran’s place.

The only thing we haven’t done (and haven’t managed to book into our schedule) is driving around looking at the Christmas lights. It’s a bit of a logistical nightmare, really. Our kids go to bed at 7pm, and it doesn’t get dark here until almost 9pm. Keeping them up late every now and then is fine, but I don’t like tiring them out too much right before Christmas.
I think it’s really neat that some people decorate their houses here, but it really is one of those winter Christmas traditions stolen from the Northern Hemisphere. Spending the early evening driving around looking at Christmas lights simply doesn’t work in the summertime. Just like roasting chestnuts on an open fire, or building Frosty the Snowman in the back yard. You don’t catch us doing much of that. At this time of year, we’re more likely to be grilling sausages on the BBQ, or building sandcastles at the beach!

Rob is out Christmas shopping tonight, and he was last night too (until after 11pm). Typical male - always leaves it to the last minute and then wonders why the mall is so busy! Anyway, since I’m alone for the evening I’m off to watch Notting Hill on TV3!