Christmas 2014

So, here's the story of Christmas 2014, mostly told in pictures....

It all started on 23rd December, when Jenny & Wayne (having arrived late the night before) took the children out for the day. They had a blast - going rock climbing, paddle boating, rock pooling, and to the museum - and came back in the afternoon all sunburnt and exhausted! 

This left me free to finish up my work for the year, wrap the last few presents in peace, do a last minute supermarket shop - and do some nice stuff too....

Like go for an early morning walk in the mountains.....

And have a picnic lunch with Jake on the waterfront....

And a walk around to Oriental Bay.... 

Have a coffee and read the paper at one of Wellington's lovely cafes.... 

And listen to the pop-up carol singers in town....

It was bliss to have an entire day to myself in the sun. So in many ways the 23rd December was pretty much the best day of the Christmas season for me! 

The next day, Christmas Eve, we picked Jake up from work in the afternoon and spent the rest of the day at Scorching Bay, swimming and playing on the beach.

(And maybe drinking a little bottle of bubbles too!)

It was such a lovely Christmas Eve!

We then began our family Xmas traditions. First of all, we always make a point of eating fish on Xmas Eve and we all open one present each. This goes back to my Polish roots. However, Wigilia Hughes-Downing style is not quite the same as the Wigilia as I had every year growing up with my Polish family! It's all in the interpretation. We had fish and chips on the beach at Lyall Bay instead. (Not a great shot of Alfie - he was hot and red and hungry!).

And then on to the next family tradition. On Christmas morning, we always go to the beach as soon as we wake up, no matter what the weather, to open a present, drink hot chocolate and eat (cold) Vegemite toast. This year was pretty windy and chilly, so we came home pretty quickly and ate Xmas cake for breakfast!!

And then it was round the tree for presents! Jenny & Wayne are working in Mozambique at the moment and brought the kids some lovely African things - a Mambas soccer top for Alfie and an African dress & jewellery for Molly. Don't they look great?!

Jenny got a bit emotional about one of her presents ;) !! (a framed photo of Molly)

Jake got quite excited about his can of Ambrosia custard all the way from the UK!

And then it was on to Christmas lunch - this was one of many "Cheers!" moments....!

Molly always helps prepare the Christmas ham for dinner. This year I also soaked it in beer every 15 minutes as well and it made the ham come out AMAZING! Very delicious indeed if anyone needs a recommendation for how to cook their ham!

It's also Molly and Alfie's job to decorate the pavlova every Christmas. Good job kids!

On Boxing Day we opened MORE presents, and then took Nana and Wayne over to Makara Beach for a walk along the clifftops....

....and we stopped for Christmas cake at the top!

For dinner that night, we walked into Otari Wilton bush and barbequed some sausages (to add  to our leftover Xmas ham and mince pies). Alfie is becoming a great barbeque-er!

And we rounded off Boxing Day with drinks at the Spruce Goose (by the airport) where the kids could play swing tennis while Wayne did some plane spotting! Lovely for everyone!

Finally....... Christmas in our house carried on until 27th December. Jake and I began with an early morning competitive journey up the mountains - Jake being convinced that he'd easily get there first. So he ran up one track and I walked up the other - and I got there first!!! (Never going to let you forget that one Jake!). Then it was back home for MORE presents!

And then we drove around to Eastbourne for a little walk along the coast....

 And a little game of cricket in the park....

And a little swim in the sea.....while a certain crazy member of the family jumped off the jetty a couple of times....

And then we came home to play on the new water slide....well, Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without a water slide!

So now it's all over. But what a great Christmas. Thanks for coming to visit Nana Jenny!

The End of The School Year

End-of-Year-itis has well and truly kicked in in recent weeks - but school has finally finished for the year.

This is always such a great/hard time of year - with the end of the school year comes all the excitement and emotions of finding out whose class you're in next year (and believe me this is a BIG deal to the kids) and all the sadness of leaving your old class behind.....

Not to mention all the excitement of Christmas coming and summer and late nights and all the other things that come with December.

So we've had a mixed up time lately, split between hanging out at the beach, and resting after school with quiet play and DVDs as much as possible.

Not that school's actually been very hard work in an academic sense. The last month of school always seems crazy, and the last week in particular is quite ridiculous! They spent one day playing in the school pool; on another day they arrived to find giant inflatables in the field and spent all day playing on them; and another day was dress-up day (Molly went as Harriet Potter!). They also had shared lunches with the parents, watched movies, and ate countless candy canes all day and brought their lunch home without eating it. 

The kids both brought great school reports home this year. Some of my favourite excerpts are below:

"Alfie really enjoys writing....he writes with expression, personal voice, and some entertaining anecdotes. Alfie really enjoys writing about his soccer exploits and games the Phoenix play. Keep up the fantastic work Alfie, I always enjoy reading your stories!"

"Molly's strength of character has shone through this year. She has proven that she is a strong and resilient student. This has shown in her learning too, where she has taken risks and accepted challenges".

We had some extra excitement in the last week of term when Alfie lost his first tooth! And the very next day Molly lost one too!

There've been some other great childhood developments recently too: the kids have learnt how to make a good gin & tonic!

Summer has arrived, and although school's finished up, Jake is still working until Xmas Eve. But no worries for Jake - we have been bringing picnic dinners and picking him up from work to go to the beach. Happy sunny evenings....! 

 

 And finally, some random news - we've been entering a few competitions lately and over the last week we have managed to win a new smartphone and a hairless doll (from an NZ-based Alopecia organisation) for Molly! 

A Christmassy Kind of Week

It's been Christmassy this week - in more ways than one!

We're having a slow start to the summer. In fact, the weather this month so far has been worse than it was all through the winter. This means two things:

1) The blueberry season has been delayed. This is NOT GOOD.
2) It feels a little bit like Christmas in the UK at the moment!  (but less dark).

Usually by this time in the year we are spending our afternoons at the outdoor pool, running through the sprinklers in the garden after school, staying up late in the sunshine etc. None of that has quite happened yet.

But most of our other December traditions have continued on. It all started on 6th December when St Nicholas came and filled the kids shoes up with goodies.....luckily they've both recently been bought new shoes, a size bigger.

We put the tree up at the weekend....every year this becomes quite an event. We get the mince pies and the Xmas CD out and have a sing-along, and Molly gets to put the angel on top, so lots of fun. So far it's still up, but I don't rate its chances with the cats around. (NB Please admire our nice white walls - that terracotta is finally gone! :) )

We also held our annual Christmas drinks party at home last weekend. Those in the Falkland Islands might remember this as an evening where tins of Quality Street featured highly. In Wellington we have to make do with strawberries and mince pies instead.

We've had the end of year gym display and ballet show - now that's a real sign that Christmas is coming. This year for ballet they did Peter Pan and Molly was one of the fairies. It suited her down to the ground as it meant she got to wear a beautiful tutu (instead of a pirate or sailor outfit).

And this week we had the Junior School end of year Christmas concert. I don't want to call it a carol concert because most of the songs they sing aren't traditional carols - it's all "Aotearoa Christmas, under the Pohuktawa tree...." and such like. Alfie just loves singing, so it was very cute to watch.

It's the end of year concerts and shows that always make things start feeling like Christmas.




In between all that, the kids have been writing Christmas cards to everyone in their class, everyone they play with from other classes, everyone they met at WOW, etc etc. This means a truck load of Xmas cards. And where did this traditition of sticking a candy cane into every single card come from? We never did that when I was a kid. Maybe it was started by (or sponsored by?) the local dentists?



Sadly, and frustratingly, Molly and her friend managed to discover some of her stocking presents hidden away in my bedroom last week. They were apparently looking for things to dress up in. This created a huge dilemma for me - but yes, I went out and bought new things for the stocking. Plus - in an extra effort to keep the magic alive I also thought it would be a good idea to take her out to meet Santa ;)

 Another tradition - every year in the lead up to Christmas we get the Christmas jigsaw puzzle out. It forces us all to take quiet rest times at weekends and in the evenings.







One more thing - our local Town Hall did Christmas carols and drinks the other night, so we all stayed up late and went aong (the kids in pyjamas and Santa hats). Alfie sang the loudest and ate the most cake!

So we are most definitely in the build up to the big day now, and it's silly hats and headgear all the way!