Taking down the decorations…
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?
Your best gift
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 🙂
What is Boxing Day?
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.
Aussie Jingle Bells
This was sent to me by e-mail. I don’t know who wrote it.
Dashing through the bush,
in a rusty Holden Ute,
Kicking up the dust,
esky in the boot,
Kelpie by my side,
singing Christmas songs,
It’s Summer time and I am in
my singlet, shorts and thongs
Oh! Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way,
Christmas in Australia on a scorching summers day, Hey!
Jingle bells, jingle bells, Christmas time is beaut!
Oh what fun it is to ride in a rusty Holden Ute.
Engine’s getting hot;
we dodge the kangaroos,
The swaggie climbs aboard,
he is welcome too.
All the family’s there,
sitting by the pool,
Christmas Day the Aussie way,
by the barbecue.
Oh! Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way,
Christmas in Australia on a scorching summers day, Hey!
Jingle bells, jingle bells, Christmas time is beaut!
Oh what fun it is to ride in a rusty Holden Ute.
Come the afternoon,
Grandpa has a doze,
The kids and Uncle Bruce
are swimming in their clothes.
The time comes ’round to go,
we take the family snap,
Pack the car and all shoot through,
before the washing up.
Oh! Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way,
Christmas in Australia on a scorching summers day, Hey!
Jingle bells, jingle bells, Christmas time is beaut!
Oh what fun it is to ride in a rusty Holden Ute.
Track Santa’s Journey
As santa travels around the world on Christmas Eve, you can track his travels on this website.
See how far and how fast he goes to get everywhere while the children are sleeping…
Thank you 🙂
My kids received their letters last week and they were just gorgeous! They were so excited to know that Santa really had noticed their good behavior during the year – and very hopeful about the potential gifts me mentioned, too!
The little surprise added in was lovely, but the craft idea on the back was fantastic. Not only have we made many versions, they are wrapped under the the tree for grandparents, aunts & uncles. It was a beautiful way to spend time with my kids and for them to learn the real value of Christmas gifts – it isn’t the price tag but the time and love that goes into them.
So thank you Santa’s Elf – and I for one am glad Santa asked for your help (not that his own letters wouldn’t be just as good!)
Where’s the spirit gone?
For many years now, our family has done a Kris Kringle for the adults – each family still gives something to the kids.
My mother has suddenly decided that this is the last year – from now on we won’t give any presents. When everyone else argued against her decree, she muttered about ‘saving everyone the hassle of choosing a present to give’ – nice to know that’s what we mean to her. Especially as even the KK has shrunk as family members have moved away and can’t join us anyway…
In the end, we overruled her and Kris Kringle lives – and with a higher budget, too (yep, Mum’s idea to reduce it to $20 a few years ago. I mean the idea of introducing KK in our family is to get one decent present instead of many small ones – not so good with a $20 cap!)
But it just made we wonder – where is the spirit of giving? The ‘it is better to give than receive’?
I’m dreaming of a wet Christmas…
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!
This is why I shop at the last minute..
(or so I read in an email)
Life is very strssful when you have to make a lot of decisions and choices. So I look after myself by reducing my choices to whatever is left in the local pharmacy or supermarket at 6pm on Christmas Eve!
My baby’s first real Christmas
My little girl was nearly two for the first Christmas she really appreciated. I was a single dad and really wanted her to enjoy the day.
She woke up at her usual time (about 8 or 8.30 I think) and I went in to see her. She was happily standing in her cot waiting for me when I walked in with a borrowed video camera filming her.
I put the camera down to open her cot and slide the armchair to be next to the cot – Santa had left her stocking on the chair rather than in her cot (i guess he was as safety conscious as me!)
She babbled away to me like any other day while I filmed her and tried to direct her attention to the chair. It seemed to take forever before she finally realised there was something interesting on the chair…
She looked up as if to see if she was allowed to touch the mysterious things that had appeared over night. I smiled and she was into it!
We then went through her stocking together and had a lovely morning with her stocking until her Grandparents arrived with more presents.
5 cent biscuits (aka shortbread)
When she was very young, my daughter decided we were making “5 cent biscuits” for Santa. I have no idea where she got the name from or what it meant to her, but the name has stuck and we leave out 5 cent biscuits for Santa every year.
Everyone else (and us the rest of the year!) call them shortbread so I thought I’d share our recipe with you – it’s pretty simple and my kids have helped make them from an early age. Santa has started putting fun cutters in their stockings, too, so I guess he likes them making biscuits for him on Christmas Eve!
5 cent biscuits (shortbread) recipe
You need:
250g butter (or margarine)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/3 cup of castor sugar
2 cups plain flour
4 Tablespoons rice flour
You do:
Pre-heat oven to 180 Celsius
Grease an oven tray
Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla (that means beat them together until they are pale yellow and fluffy)
add flour and mix
knead the dough well on a lightly floured bench/board
shape shortbread*
Prick shortbread surface with a fork
bake at 160 Celsius (yep, lower than the pre-heat temp) for 15 – 20 minutes
remove from oven when starting to colour
cool
sprinkle with icing sugar, dip in chocolate or leave plain.
* you can roll out the dough and make 4 saucer-sized circles, cut into 8 pieces per circle OR you can let the kids use shaped cutters to make fun 5 cent biscuits. Individual biscuits cook a little faster than the circles.
Kids love Santa letters
An article in The Australian newspaper today reported that despite messages to Santa being available via email, SMS, etc, children still prefer to write an old fashioned snail mail letter to Santa like we all remember doing.
Writing a letter to Santa is more real than sending a message, and it allows children to get creative with the presentation, too.
Apparently, 6 million letters were sent to Santa in 2006 (glad the postal workers have been counting as Santa and the elves were too busy reading to count!) and that is likely to be less than this year’s total.
The Universal Postal Union represents 191 countries and has over 5 million people helping deliver letters and cards to and from Santa each year! That’s allows for a LOT of Santa letters!
Does your family write to Santa each year?
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