Every year since my business began, we have been doing an ornament exchange with my clients. Any member who wants to be involved signs up in November and is sent their recipient. I have a special ornament from my clients for every year Business Mums has been running.

I received my latest ornament today – a gorgeous hand made reindeer. It is now hanging in pride of place on my Christmas tree.

As a Foster Carer, Christmas has never been the same two years running. Luckily that’s just the way I like it! We have many lovely, touching memories of course but last Christamas really showed us that money spent and beatiful wrapping can be meaningless. Let me explain:

Christmas 2007 I had 3 children living with me, one of whom was a 5 year old with developmental delays, who had no memories nor understanding of Christmas. Her birth family life had been one of poverty and trauma, and she had no expectations as she had no reason to believe the magic of Christmas existed!

I had saved, bought and wrapped 6 gifts each for the 3 children and piled them beneath the decorated tree on Christmas Eve. The children had left cookies and lemonade out for Santa and carrots for the reindeer and I sprinkled fake, plastic snow across the carpet from the front door (no chimney!) to the tree before going to bed.

Christmas morning at 5:30 my other 2 children were up, waking me and keen to unwrap, having carefully counted and inspected their labelled gifts. Keen to begin they roused the little girl and told her to run and see what Santa had brought. She came slowly out of her room, yawning and not in any hurry as she had no anticipation of goodies. Then she stopped and began to laugh and jump up and down with happiness. “Mama, Mama” she yelled “Oh look it, look it!”.  Had she seen her mountain of gifts at last? No, her delight was in the $2.50 packet of plastic snow that Santa had left behind.

That little girl sat and threw ‘snow’ over herself for almost an hour laughing and calling to us to see the miracle that had taken place. Yes, she did come later and opened her gifts, but she was drawn back to play in the ‘snow’ throughout the rest of the day.

Today, I went to an afternoon tea at my children’s school – it was to thank parents and others who do things to support the school, such as go on excursions and help with reading programs. During the afternoon, various classes came in and sang Christmas songs for us.

it was lovely to hear them sing, and watch the actions they had obviously practiced – they were so cute! The joy on their faces to be doing something for us, as well as the fun of the songs, was great, too.

The grade 1 classes sang “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth”- and at least a third of them actually had front teeth missing so the song was a good choice

That’s Christmas should be – people sharing good times, children laughing and having fun, and people happily doing something special for others. May you and your children have a happy Christmas!

If you need to take a dish to a Christmas function, but know you won’t have time to cook anything at the time, why not cook it sooner and freeze it? Then just pull it out of the freezer in time for the event – a great back up for unexpected visitors over the holiday season, too. This is an easy to make lasagne that freezes nicely…

2kg mince meat plus 2 large jars of prepared sauce and 1 large tin tomato puree*
4kg cheese – a combination of two works well, especially if one is mozzarella for the stringy effect!
2kg penne, ziti or other tube pasta

make a layer of meat sauce

cover with pasta

cover with cheese

cover with sauce

repeat until the pan is full and/or you run out of ingredients, but make sure cheese is the top layer. Wrap tightly and freeze. Bake at 180 C for about 30 minutes, plus 5 minutes uncovered – longer if cooking from frozen.

* If you have time, add chopped vegies into the sauce for more flavour and to make it a complete meal when serving it.

Writing letters to Santa is one of the main entertainments for children at Christmas. With over 120,000 letters sent to Santa last year through the Australian post it’s now time to start thinking what to write in this years letter to Santa.

Sometimes kids write amazing things in their Santa letters. Instead of asking for a toy or a play thing they sometimes ask for things from Santa that are more heart felt and meaningful. And sometimes they write something very funny and amusing.

Do you remember anything you asked Santa for in a letter? What about anything amusing or special your children asked Santa for?

Has anybody in your family ever kept copies of Santa letters as a memento?

We have a very diverse Community here in Australia, and I thought it would be nice to have a blog on different holidays that are celebrated around the world at about the same time as Christmas.

Christmas – December 25th
Christmas is a Christian holiday that celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ. Though in most places the celebration is not considered to be the actual date of Christ, in most places around the world Christmas Day is celebrated on December 25. Christmas Eve is the preceding day, December 24. In Germany and some other countries, the main Christmas celebrations commence on the evening of the 24th. During the Christmas season, people traditionally exchange gifts and decorate their homes with holly, mistletoe, and Christmas trees. The word Christmas comes from Cristes maesse, an early English phrase that means Mass of Christ.

Hanukkah – starts December 21st
Hanukkah means “dedication” or “consecration”, and is also called “The festival of Lights”, is a Jewish festivity that lasts eight days starting on the 25th day of Kislev which normally occurs late November or early December.

Eid-al-Adha – Muslim Holiday – December 19th
Eid-al-Adha or “The festival of sacrifice” is a three day feast that follows the Pilgrimage to Mecca. It is a religious festival conducted by Druze and Muslims across the globe and is a commemoration of God’s forgiveness of Ibrahim (Abraham) from his vow to sacrifice his own son as was commanded by Allah.

Kwanzaa – December 26th
Kwanzaa (Quansa) is a holiday celebrated by many African-Americans. It is a week long festival that runs from December 26th through to January 1st.

It was started in 1966 by Doctor Maulana Karenga. Karenga established Kwanzaa as a means to help the African Americans reconnect with their African cultural and historical heritage by uniting in meditation and study of “African traditions” and “common humanist principles.” There are 7 principles of Kwanzaa, and each day represents a different one of the principles. First principle is Unity, followed by self determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and lastly is faith.

Bodhi Day – Usually December 8th
Bodhi Day is the Buddhist holiday that commemorates the day that the historical Buddha,Siddhartha Gautama, experienced enlightenment, also known as Bodhi.

The prince, Siddhartha Gautama, left his home, family and all his possessions behind at the age of twenty-nine to go look for the meaning of life. After six years, and still not finding what he was looking for, he sat down under a pipal tree and vowed not to arise until he understood his purpose in life. He sat through the week, day and night, and on the eighth morning came to the realization which became the founding principles of what the world now calls Buddhism.

I’ve been meaning to post this since Christmas!

This year, my kids decided that Mummy needed to have a stocking too, as Santa only brings gifts for kids. So, I gave them some shopping money (they’re 3 & 5 and don’t get pocket money yet), and they took their Oma to Chadstone to buy items for Mummy’s stocking. They made some great choices, include a Christmas angel with my name on it, a headband, a book to read, and some bubble bath.

On Christmas morning, we all had fun opening our stockings together, and the boys were so proud of the stocking they had put together for Mummy.

Christmas decorations often have a mix of sentimental and monetary value, so it is rare for people to get a whole new set of decorations every year (of course, if you think it is common, let me know!)

So that means each December/January we have to pack away those precious decorations and store them for another year.

Decorations can vary in shape and size, especially once you have a few hand-made treasures in the collection, so it can be a challenge to pack them. And then you have to allow for some being fragile and needing extra care in packing.

So how do you pack away your Christmas decorations – do you have any tips or secrets that could help everyone else this year?

Ah, it’s a sad task but the Christmas decorations can’t stay up all year.

I mean, I’d love the magic and spirit of Christmas to be with us always, but it wouldn’t be so special if we saw Christmas trees everywhere and lived with tinsel around our houses all year.

So it needs to come down, be packed away carefully and stored until next December.

But when should they come down?

I have heard many times that it is bad luck to still have them up on/after the 6th January, and others say it is bad luck to start the new year with the Christmas decorations still on display.

The twelve days of Christmas ends on the evening of January 5 – just as Christmas starts at night fall on the 24th December (traditionally, days ended/started with the light, not at midnight.)

Traditional decorations were mostly ivy, which were believed to hold the spirit of the trees. Taking down the decorations and putting the ivy outside releases the tree spirits back into nature; leaving the tree spirits trapped in the house for too long would prevent plants growing and the arrival of spring (obviously not an Australian tradition!)

When do you take down your decorations? Do you make it fun or is it just a task to get done quickly?

What was the best gift you received this Christmas? And why do you call it your best?

Don’t go by anyone else’s standards – the best gift you got may have been the cheapest, the least practical or the ugliest, but if it has meaning to you, we’d love to hear about it

The 26th of December is known in many countries as Boxing Day, in particular, Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Canada.

Some say it originated as the day when Christmas was packed up – things put away, boxes thrown out, etc.

In England, it was tradition that on Boxing Day gifts were given to employees and the poor. The theory being that staff would work hard to give you a nice Christmas Day so on Boxing Day you thanked them with a gift.

It is a public holiday in Australia* so most of us don’t work unless we are in essential services or retail…

How do you celebrate (or not) Boxing Day? What does the term ‘Boxing Day’ mean to you?

* In South Australia, they have a Proclamation Day holiday instead of Boxing Day but it’s still the 26th of December.

With the amount of rain falling on Melbourne over the last two days, it doesn’t take much dreaming to envision a wet Christmas! Forecasts are for fine and 25, but I suspect it will be wet underfoot in many places still and the tree/ earthwork damage will still be visible anyway.

It reminds me of a Christmas when I was a kid – I only remember bits & pieces of it (and it may have been a family Christmas party rather than on Christmas Day although my memory is Christmas Day) I don’t remember Christmas celebrations themselves affected by rain and water, but going home was a different story!

Driving along Dandenong Road, the road was covered in water – at least ankle deep is my guess. There weren’t a lot of cars on the road, and all were travelling slowly and carefully. I think our engine must have been flooded because I remember Dad walking off through the pouring rain, trudging through the lake of the service road to reach a phone booth and call for help.

I don’t remember who rescued us and can’t imagine who he called for help – my Grandparents would have been closest but they never drove or owned a car! Maybe he just rang the RACV and I can only imagine how long a wait that would have been on such a night.

It was a bit scary – I think the car breaking down and Dad not automatically fixing it broke a few childish illusions

Here’s hoping Christmas Day this year will be a little less adventurous, as much as we appreciate the rain!