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!

I’m not 100% sure of the accuracy of this but it certainly sounds plausible. Perhaps Santa could confirm this?

According to the Alaskan Dept. of Fish and Game, while both male and female reindeer grow antlers in the summer each year, the male antlers drop their antlers at the beginning of winter, usually late November to mid-December. Female reindeer retain their antlers until after they give birth in the spring.

Therefore, according to EVERY historical rendition depicting Santa’s reindeer, EVERY single one of them from Rudolph to Blitzen, had to be a girl.

We should have known… only women would be able to drag a (ahem - sorry Santa) rather largish man in a red velvet suit all around the world in one night and not get lost!

I love giving gifts that really mean something to the other person - it takes more time than buying a box of chocolates or a book voucher, but the look on their face and the knowledge that the present will last (in their memories at least) is well worth it to me.

I remember I once gave a babysitting voucher to my cousin who had a boisterous toddler - the look of joy on her face was priceless, and she treasured that voucher above her other gifts (by treasured I mean she kept it away from her toddler whereas he could look at her other gifts!) It was a simple gift and affordable as I had little money at the time, but meant a lot to her.

Another year I gave another cousin a calligraphy set because I remembered her saying she’d love to learn calligraphy. She had forgotten telling me that so her gift was a surprise but really suited her.

What presents have you given or received that are memorable for more than the price tag?

We have some good friends who have a 2 year old son. His was the first Christmas present we bought this year - we saw it months ago and grabbed it on the spot for him.

On the weekend, we saw our friends and gave their son his gift. It was a little barn (made out of fabric like a small tent) with 8 soft animals (4 pairs of mother and baby). He wasn’t overly excited when it opened and I set up the barn for him, but he then played with his animals happily.

We all left together to go to carols by candlelight - and the barn came with us. One determined two year would not let go of his barn in the car or walking from the car to the park where we had carols, and likewise to go back to the car! He did put it down to run around the park and eat a doughnut, but we got the message that he loved his new barn and animals.

That is the sort of reaction we love when giving a present!

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house no one could remember the names of Santa’ reindeer:)

For anyone else trying to remember the names to tell the kids or win Trivial Pursuit here they are:

• Prancer
• Dancer
• Donner
• Blitzen
• Dasher
• Vixen
• Commet
• Cupid
• and, of course, Rudolph

But I also heard that it would take more than 214,000 reindeers to pull a sleigh of 333,333 tons (based on one soft toy per child I think it was) Now there is no way I’m going to list out 214,000 reindeer names, even if I had a hope of knowing them all!

Of course, whoever did those calculations didn’t factor in the magic of Santa or the white boomers so the 9 names above are enough for me!

When I was 16, I spent my first Christmas away from my family (we did presents and stuff a few days early instead). Along with about 12 others from my scout district, I headed off to Perth for a Venture (this is a huge camp for Venturers, like a scout Jamboree. People travelled from across Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and more to attend, and we had a ball.)

We left on Christmas Eve, packed into two vehicles (a people mover and a 4 wheel drive). Christmas night we were in a place called Ceduna for our Christmas feast. To be honest, I don’t remember what we ate but we laughed a lot as we ate and I do remember what we drank. Our district leader wanted to give us a treat so bought us a bottle of sparkling wine; he also wanted to conserve our collective funds so he purchased some cheap Spumante. And spew-mante is definitely what we called it…

Over Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day, we covered some 2890 kms (from Melbourne to Norseman) and viewed some of the diversity of Australia - metropolitan Melbourne and Adelaide, rural Victoria, the Great Australian Bite and part of the Nullarbor Plain.

It was a very different Christmas for me - rough, no presents, sitting in a car for most of it - but I wouldn’t change it for the world as I saw so much of Australia and had a great time with friends.

In fact, now that I have thought about that trip again, I think we will have a travelling Christmas soon - probably next year.

We had our break up at the scout hall last night - Santa came, we played games, we ate food and we had lots of fun. Some kids even got badges and awards.

The hall was decorated with paper chains, balloons and pictures of Santa. Best of all was a tall Christmas tree near one corner, with a basket of presents from Santa. But the tree didn’t touch the ground!

The tree was hung from the roof on a rope so it swings - can’t knock it over that way I guess, and it does get a few knocks with 60 or so kids running around. I don’t know how’s its made - its sort of spirally and then has decorations hanging on it. I think its pretty old, too.

Oh, and thanks for my present Santa!

Every year, my Mum would do something special for those around us - school teachers, guide leaders, postman, etc - and one year she made individual Christmas cakes.

She bought Christmas cakes from the supermarket, those square fruit cakes, and cut them into quarters to make 4 cakes. She put each cake on a piece of strong cardboard covered in foil. We then iced them with Royal icing (the white icing on wedding cakes). On some of them we decorated the icing with icing tools to put patterns around the top.

She then got us to roll out the scraps of icing and cut out holly leaves with mini cutters. These we painted green with food colouring. We also made little balls to be holly berries and painted these red.

We decorated the tops of the cakes with the holly berries and leaves and Mum piped “Merry Christmas” on the top in white icing. We then painted the letters with gold.

To complete the gifts, we wrapped them in clear cellophane tied up with red and green curling ribbon.

They looked fantastic and were well received by everyone.

I think my childhood Christmases were pretty Australian.

We spent the day at my Uncle’s house every Christmas. They lived right on the beach so in between food and presents, we’d spend the day on the beach - mostly I remember playing cricket for hours on end.

It was hot, sunny and great fun!

Regardless, we had the traditional roast meal - lamb, pork and turkey I think were there most years, with loads of veggies, followed by Christmas pudding and custard and/or cream.

Present time was a bit mad, but it was controlled enough that we all watched what everyone got before the next presents were handed out - made it more fun to prolong the pleasure and enjoy everyone’s happiness at their gifts.

The day was loud and seemed to last forever, and we hated going home afterwards.

Did anyone else make paper chains for Christmas?

We made them at school every year during Primary school, plus I attempted making some at home. We didn’t have strips of paper so I tried cutting my own and I never did get the cutting quite straight! The home made ones were a bit boring, too, as we never had coloured paper and my attempts to colour them with pencils were a bit faint and dismal.

Our classrooms were always decked in paper chains - and I always looked back on the previous year’s room and wondered why the kids made chains instead of using the ones we had made (never occurred to me that the year above me probably had done some too!) I wanted to know where they stored them all…

I don’t think my kids have ever made paper chains anywhere but at home - they don’t do them at school or childcare, or even at Joeys (the craft hub of our lives right now.) I wonder why? Maybe they try to make things so each child gets one to take home, and mabye things that last better than paper chains so they can be stored and used for Christmas after Christmas. All very reasonable but paper chains were a fun part of Christmas each year!

Might have to start cutting some strips for this weekend - but I’ll use a cutter instead of scissors this time!

Yesterday on a long drive, both my kids fell asleep in the car. After about an hour, my nearly 6 year old woke with a start telling me he’d just had a lovely big sleep and had a wonderful dream.

He dreamt there were lots of Santas in the world, making sure all the kids had “the most” presents.

I thought that was lovely, and spot on.

Last year at our church, someone came up with the idea of a Christmas tree decorated in angels. Instead of buying heaps of Christmas cards for everyone, the idea was to write your Christmas message on an angel to put on the tree as a single card to the whole church community. The money saved on buying cards could then be donated to charity.

They are doing this again this year, and I think it’s a fantastic idea, one that could work in other community groups too