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!
No comments:
Post a Comment