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December 26, 2008

A Christmas Debrief

Well, all that build up and it's over. We had a lovely quiet and relaxed day over at my parents. And now the summer holidays, camping trips and relaxing begins.

Mid morning had us starting off with a fresh fruit salad.

Then Grampy arrived home from working a few hours. Silly grampy!

Having a wee rest before our barbecue lunch was served.

Family photo before kids got tired and mucky from lunch lol.

Nathan having a quiet moment with his new guitar.

A bit of water sliding...

The boys having a snooze before dinner.

Dinner was a freshly baked loaf of bread with slices of ham followed by a pavlova and fruit salad for dessert.

Oh, so many things I'd like to do differently next year. The day itself was perfect and just the way our family likes to celebrate it and pretty much always has.

But boy, there was still too much wrapping paper, too many discarded plastic wrappings on the kids toys and still a few low quality plastic toys bought by myself - hmmppfff. Wanna change that. Definitely want to get my act together and make presents next year. I did well last year, but let it all get away on me this time around although my gift choices were on the practical side rather than adding stuff to people's houses for the sake of it.

My Christmas presents will be arriving in the New Year - I spent my Christmas money on some books that have been on my wishlist for a while. I set aside the totally practical sustainable living type books in favour for a bit of feel-good yumminess with a sustainable bent to them...

Creative Family: How to Encourage Imagination and Nurture Family Connections by Amanda Soule
Walden by Henry Thoreau
Earthwise by Carol Petrash
The Lilypad List by Marian Van Eyk McCain

I also received a couple of magazine subscriptions...
World Sweet World (I was interviewed in the Issue 4 by Johanna for an article on Transition Towns).
Organic NZ

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am trying so hard to imagine Christmas with nice weather... but can't, lol. De-lurking here btw; love your blog. It's fun to read what's going on in your garden while my garden is (mostly) asleep for the winter.

You will love Amanda's book. It's gorgeous.
Happy Christmas.

Anonymous said...

I got the Organic NZ subscription for Christmas too :D
With lots of other garden stuff. It's the first year I haven't been asked what I want and then hounded about it right up until Christmas day... Finally there's something I have a passion about that others can understand and buy me pressies for!

Stacey said...

The Creative Family is a fabulous book. Amanda is so inspiring. She said that she is working on a new book also, so you'll have to add that to your wish list for next year.

I'm with you on the doing things differently for Christmas. I hate plastic toys, and get so frustrated when we are gifted them by well meaning people who don't understand our philosophy of living. Next year I aim to make a reusable felt Advent calendar, and make more presents for people. I gave things people could use this year, but it is so hard.

Glad you had a wonderful Christmas. All the best for a safe and happy New Year.

BTW, your garden inspires me.

Nova said...

sounds lovely!

honestly, buying from markets/small craftspeople/DIY & using fabric wrappings made *such* a difference to the amount of rubbish we created! shame no-one told the rest of our family ;)