It has begun

7 December 2014

Good afternoon my lovelies and how are you today????

Well it has begun and I do hear you asking what has begun and if you give me a chance I will tell you.  "The getting ready to move throw out of all the collected junk" I figure if we get the clean out started then there will be less stuff to move and well if we haven't used it in the last 12 months we don't need it.  I will be working on the pile principal - Donate, Ditch and keep ( was trying to think of a word that means keep that started with D and couldn't find one, it would have been the three D's so now it is DD"s!!!!).

We are going to sell some stuff on Gumtree because well once we have a house then we can go and start working out where we are going to put furniture, what will fit and what isn't going to.  The furniture that we have been holding on to because it was given to us well if it doesn't fit it is going, we can't keep everything so some tough decisions have to be made.  I like to think I can make the tough decisions but in reality I fold like a letter going into a envelope.  The worst part of it is I notice that Miss 9 and Master 8 are starting to do the same thing and well that is the last thing  I want.

On Thursday I am going to brave the shopping madness and I am going to go and do my christmas shopping, I fear that I may get lost in the crowd of frenzied Mums trying to get it done before school breaks up for the year but I must be brave.
What I am going to get them, I have no idea - the kids change their minds on what they would like every week, and most of it depends on what toy add they have seen. I don't even know what I am getting DH this year - he says that he doesn't want anything but everybody needs something to open on Christmas morning.
We will be up early - the excitement will be to much for the kids and well they are too cute they scoff their breakfast and have their beds made in record time, now if they could only do that on school mornings it would be so much easier.  I always wondered why my Mum had that rule in place and now I understand - things get done when the thought of ripping open the paper on present that is sitting there waiting to be played with.

As much as I am looking forward to Christmas I'm not, it is such a build up to the event and then it is over so quickly, the leftovers from lunch that you have for dinner, then lunch and then cook so that it doesn't sit in the fridge looking at you for days, the presents you spent ages wrapping the paper is torn to shreds in a frenzy.  But for us here in Australia with Christmas Day over we slide into Boxing Day and the Boxing Day Cricket Test - we camp out in the Air-conditioning watching the test match (because there is nothing else on and because it is to hot to go to the beach because each year you forget to wear the double pluggers and you end up burning your feet while trying to do the beach towel dash) then we are ramping up for NEW YEAR'S Eve.  Now that is a different story, as any self respecting mother of children under the age of 10 knows there are the family fireworks at 9pm and then it home to bed, we try and convince ourselves that we are going to stay up and see the New Year in but sadly we are in bed by 10pm with sugar plums taking their final bows ready for a well deserved rest of 365 days before they have to start all over again.

Now for us here in Australia Christmas lunch isn't a hot meal, the meat may be done on the BBQ, plenty of salad, jelly slice, fruit mince pies, custard and maybe a Lions Christmas cake, there is always enough cooked that two families can walk away with enough to eat for the next three meals! Now there may be Champagne that flows or even cold beer and there will definitely be some fruit punch I might even do croissants for breakfast - they will be stuffed with chocolate ( its Christmas and well I never do it any other time) and quite possibly DH and I  will have a big cup of coffee because the above mentioned presents would have been ripped open by 6 am, last year Master 8 was up at 4am ready to open presents!!!
So what Christmas traditions do you have?