Deck The Halls...

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas... well, with less than two weeks to go, it's kind of hard to avoid all things Christmas-y. Shopping is a nightmare. Christmas lights are on up and down the street. The usual round of Christmas parties has begun.

First we had the break up party at Playgroup. Found an easy recipe for Christmas tree biscuits. Luckily, I had a tree shaped cutter stashed away in the back of the cupboard. Cheyenne helped to decorate them with mini M & Ms. I thought they looked very cute - bright and festive - and all the kids loved them.

We'd had our Christmas lights on the front of the house fairly early, but been a bit slack putting up our tree. I must confess that two rope light shapes (which hang in the front windows of my craft room) are there permanently, all year round... out of necessity because they are in an awkward spot, not because I'm too lazy to take them down, honest! I'd had to buy a new set of icicle lights for the front verandah because the set from two years ago only just limped through last year's display. When I hauled the tree and decorations out from the storage area under the stairs, I discovered a brand new 8 function rope light, still in the shrink wrap! I'd post a photo of our lights, but can't find my itty bitty tripod and anyway, our current compact digital (a Pentax) takes the most appalling night shots - even whilst in night mode! I would have thought that a Pentax would be better quality, but I guess, at $185, you get what you pay for!

Cheyenne was keen to get the tree up, so we had a bit of "family time" decorating it. There are still a lot of decorations that didn't make it onto the tree this year, but really, you can go a bit overboard if you aren't careful, and the tree will do, as it is, without the extras.

Steve's boss decided to go barefoot bowling for their Christmas party. I don't mind lawn bowls really, and barefoot bowls seems to be becoming quite popular these days. All but Steve and one other bloke live on the south side, so it was held at Carina Bowls Club. The food was a bit average. The boss's wife was livid about ordering enough nibbly food to feed 20 people, paying $300 for it and only getting three lousy trays - one of cold meats/antipasto/crackers and dip, and two of various hot savouries of the mini spring roll, curry puff, spicy meatball, unidentifiable mini quiche variety. She ended up ordering 6 large pizzas from Pizza Hut because everyone was still hungry. Nevertheless, the bowling itself was ok, despite the fact that a storm hit and we ended up playing in the rain. At least it cooled us all down.

Cheyenne's kindy is finished for the year and they held the Christmas party for the children and their families on Thursday night. It was a bring-a-plate affair and the children sang songs and had a visit from Santa. Cheyenne STILL has a problem with Santa's beard, so I got this photo under protest, with Cheyenne clinging to Steve the whole time. It is the first real Santa photo I've managed to get of her in five years, so I'm happy with it.

So with less than two weeks to go I still have so much to do... finish making my Christmas cards, and finish my Christmas shopping (still heaps more to go) not to mention wrap everything and get it under the tree in time, attend a bbq and a Christmas drinks evening and anything else last minute that I'm bound to have forgotten to do. Hopefully I get it all done and can kick back and relax.