Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Getting ready for Christmas

Like some of you ,we've been busy this past week getting into the Christmas season and it's been a very exciting time for us.
You see, we only celebrate Christmas once every two years in Sydney as we spend the alternate Christmas with Ron's family who live in Victoria.
And even when we are home for Christmas we miss out on the whole build up to Christmas because we've often been visiting Ron's family / been on holidays and get back just a few days before Christmas. Our Christmas tree only comes out of storage once every two years:(

It's been different this year as we took a much shorter break to visit them as I mentioned in my last post and we are postponing our annual holiday till early next year. The last Christmas we had in Sydney Rebekah was 4 and 1/2 and a couple of years makes a big difference when you are a child doesn't it? That explains our great excitement here!

We started off early last week, collecting some pine cones and painting them in Christmas colours (don't ask me where I got this idea from:)) I must have read it somewhere because it popped into my head when we were out on a nature walk early last week!
They are pretty small pine cones but it was fun painting them with Rebekah. (sorry this picture is not great quality)






















Then we got out our box of Christmas decorations as Rebekah was eager to look at them. She couldn't wait till the weekend (when Ron promised he would set up the tree with her).














































I've even been thinking of baking some shortbread for Christmas, never done this before, so I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope they turn out ok and edible!
In India, the traditional Christmas baking was called "kul kuls"















and "rose cookies",
















both of them involving flour, sugar, eggs and lots of oil for deep frying!

I have a lot of fond memories of cooking them each Christmas with my mum.
So, you see we did have some family traditions that I'd forgotten about when I did my post on family traditions some time ago. Sorry about that!
In fact after I did that post I remembered that we did have a couple of family traditions (besides the afore mentioned one) which I will need to tell you about another time as it's a digression! I just had to get this off my chest as it had been bothering me since then, lol.

Anyway, I may even make a few rose cookies besides shortbread. I've got to nurture and cultivate Rebekah's Indian heritage (wink) :)
So, here's our Chritmas tree, unfortunately they set it up on Saturday night while I was out so I couldn't take pictures of them setting it up.





















It's a small one as we live in a small place and it's not real either! But we like it!

Rebekah has been loving seeing the Christmas tree light up every night and I've even been turning it on in the mornings as it's such a novelty at the moment:)

10 comments:

Clara said...

I have a REALLY easy shortbread recipe that can't possibly be messed up. I'm not sure if I've ever posted it on my recipe blog, I'll take a look - if it's not over there I'll post it for you! :) It is *delicious* and melts-in-the-mouth!! Yep, haven't posted it. I'll go over and post it right now, over here: http://recipesfromclara.blogspot.com/

Clara said...

(not that I'm intimating you *would* mess up a recipe; I'm just emphasizing the simplicity of the recipe when I wrote that it "can't possibly be messed up"!! Sorry if that came over the wrong way!!)

Joyfulmum said...

Clara, I really appreciate you helping me out with a recipe. I'll be over there to check it out in a while but just wanted to say that what you said didn't come out the wrong way at all, I knew what you meant when you said it:) you're very sweet about explaining yourself though, thanks:)

Ganeida said...

Star is my Christmas tree putter upperer but this year it may not even go up. I refuse to do it before December but now it's December we are just running thanks to her concerts. I would leave it altogether but Star loves the lights & excitement.

Rebekah is at such a wonderful age for all the Christmas things. Enjoy.

Sarah said...

Fantastic...love hearing of different traditions people have! We are yet to put our tree up as we cut a branch off the pine tree out the back of our home and it has been raining for the last 2 days. Can't wait though. Deck the halls...

Finding Joy said...

Christmas with children is always heaps of fun as you get caught up in their joy and happiness. I stopped putting up a big Christmas tree when our dogs were little and would knock it over or think it was a real tree (and you can guess what they wanted to do!!) and now with the cat, she would simply want to climb it. I just have a little tree I put on the shelf, out of pets way!!!

Tea said...

Your pinecones look so beautiful! I love that! Decorating for Christmas is so much fun! Glad you and your family are enjoying!

Amy said...

Fun! It's funny, I was thinking of doing the same pinecone craft! :) We've been decorating too...the kids are really enjoying it this year!

Joyfulmum said...

that is funny Jo:)

Anonymous said...

I love your pinecones - so pretty! And yes - you need to nurture her Indian heritage. Absolutely. Always enjoy your posts and catching up with you on your blog. xo