After all the planning, choosing, buying, wrapping, shopping, cooking… all the anticipation and here we are: Christmas Eve! Who can believe that we’re this close to the end of 2010!?
I LOVE Christmas, and I’m always so excited in the lead-up, and of course on the day.
I’ve volunteered for Life-line, wrapping Christmas gifts at a local shopping centre. I think it’s about my 4th time, and I really love doing it. I’ve also done lots of shopping, and probably bought way too many presents, but it’s all worth it watching the people I love open what I’ve chosen for them.
This evening, we attended our church’s Christmas Eve service… in fact, my family led the music.
The original plan was to drive out to my grandparent’s house after church. Unfortunately, because of all the rain our so-called “Sunshine State” has recently endured, we aren’t able to make the pilgrimage, what with all the various flooded bridges and roads between us and them. We’re all feeling a little sad about it all – it would have been the first time we’d had Christmas day with them for nearly a decade. It also would have been lovely for Nana & Pop to have both of their great-granddaughters for Christmas. But all the if-onlys make me sad, so I’m trying not to focus on that too much.
The wonderful news is that my beautiful Oma is in Queensland! You might remember the very bittersweet Christmas we had with her last year in WA. She also had another health-scare earlier this month, which, praise God, ended up being nothing to worry about. So we are feeling very blessed indeed to have her joining in with our Christmas celebrations! And despite our rather rushed Christmas lunch plans (and the fact that as I write my mum and sister are only now putting together the Christmas pudding ice-cream cake and the apricot balls), having her here will certainly make this Christmas something special.
Tomorrow, we will arrive at my parent’s early. We’re having a delicious breakfast of bircher, boiled eggs, and delicious freshly baked brioche bread from a local French cafe. We have no church service to go (since ours was tonight), so we will probably clean up and get all our nibbles and coffees ready so we have sustenance for the extravaganza that is the Buma present-opening session. We open presents one-by-one, with everyone watching, and lots of delicious goodies on the coffee table. It literally takes hours, and is part of our Christmas day that I will always LOVE. This year I think we’ve truly outdone ourselves: the pile of presents under our tree is truly impressive.
After this, we will put the finishing touches on lunch (which this year is a selection of delicious salads, a ham, and a webber-cooked snapper), and sit down for more food. This afternoon is usually time to play with our presents, snack a little more, and spend some quality time together. Depending on the weather, we might pop over to the house we’re house-sitting and enjoy the pool.
I’m going to savour every minute – I really can’t wait!
For now though, I have apricot balls and bircher to make.
Merry Christmas to all!! I hope you all enjoy your day tomorrow as much as I know I will!
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