Tell me it's over!

That pretty much says it all I believe.  Sounds a little anti Christmas I guess....We have just finished off Christmas in our emalgamated family.  Honestly...I have had a migraine since Christmas Eve.  It's January 2nd, and now we can get back to 'normal life'  I even took down the tree and got the christmas out of the house yesterday....moving on!  We had 3 BIG family Christmas get togethers.  Which was nice in theory, but each of these required food, christmas presents for at least 15 + people ( each party) and in one, motel stay.  There are several things I could have done to alleviate stress, but chose not to......

1.  'Purchase' presents for adults instead of dreaming up interesting things to hand create...May have needed to remorgage the house, but I wouldn't have had to sit for hours upon hours creating the night before EACH party.  This would have required more shopping though, and with 1 attempt to go shopping with two young children, under my belt, (vowing NEVER to undertake that particular endeavour again in my lifetime) I had already organised John to take a day off while I went shopping for the bulk of just 1 of these parties,  any more and he would have had to take holidays.  I came home slightly frazzled!  Not nice.

2.  NOT try to make special little nicities for the dinner table, to make Christmas a bit more special.  I made a Christmas tree cake, (which was cute, but needed to be done Christmas morning, which made us late, and added more stress to an already rushed morning) and cute little decorated star biscuits with each persons name piped on, which doubled as place seating thingies.  Very cute, but again just something else to get done!

3. NOT agree to a time Christmas morning which does not allow for a casual relaxed Christmas breakfast with my own immediate family.  This is one I regret most.  I want to start our own family traditions, not just race off here and there and not get our own time to celebrate Christmas.  11.30am at a destination more than an hour away ( as it turned out -1hr 20mins with 19 traffic lights.....trying to balance a melting towering Christmas tree cake piled high and held together with only wooden skewers on my lap....mmmm!)

4.  Suggest that all these family get togethers start a fortnight before Christmas, and finish a fortnight after christmas.  Create space between parties!!!

5.  Try to minimise travelling.  We spent 10 hours travelling in the car over less than a week.  For us...that is excessive! (especially being in a confined space with two kids that don't like travelling!)

6.  Start now for next Christmas!

In saying all that...It was lovely catching up with people we hadn't seen for a long time, even though at the final party we were on a farm which recorded the temperature out in direct sun at 50 degrees I believe.  EWWW.  It was extremely hot, but.... we got a motel in Loxton and it had VERY good air conditioning, so when we could retreat to our room for the night each day over the weekend, we were cold, instead of sweltering!

Here are some pics.....

An advent Calendar I made for the kids for the month of December.  It was a hit.  I got the idea from a family craft website and a link to an ETSY shop.  someone had made a calendar from toilet rolls.  Very cute!

Our Christmas cards for people who live away from us.  It included a letter about our year 2007.  I have tried to do this for years now, and never actually got to it.  They were sent AFTER christmas, as a holiday card, but they were sent!!!!

I made a coupon booklet for some couples (with kids mostly) for the couples to use to give each other 'space' or 'mental health time'!!! (well that is what we call it in my home!!)  I dreamt up all the things I like to occur in my house for me to get relief here and there.  'A coffee out with a friend', or 'a meal You did not cook', or ' put your feet up with coffee and a biscuit for half an hour -child free'  'Pizza and a movie tonight - when kids are in bed!"  There were 30 coupons in each booklet, and I got to use my perforating tool for the first time ever.  I like it a lot!!!  Made them look very professional!

                                                               That cake!           

And our family Christmas photo. One of the better ones!  Man, that was a mission!       

Well That's it.  Now I just want to do some creating!  Lots of new stuff to use,  Lots of fun ahead,  as long as the kids will allow it!!!

Till next time....

Lydell x