Christmas Day 2010

What a beautiful day! I hope you had a Merry Christmas too!

The girls woke at 6am to discover stockings full of toys at the end of their beds and then spent another two hours opening the 'big toys' under the tree, stopping to play in-between. Elly was so excited about it all, she was bouncing from one corner of the room to the other, wondering what to do about it all! It was very funny.

Then it was to Mimi & Poppy's house for the Big Christmas Breakfast; bacon, eggs, sausages, grilled tomatos, mushrooms, onions, croissants with ham & cheese and the annual Christmas Fruit Platter;

This has become a bit of a {rather funny} tradition in my family. My younger brother Greg has a friend who owns a big fruit shop down the road from my parents house. When my Mum found out they made big fruit platters a few years ago, she ordered one for Christmas Day.

Well, it was such a hit and she enjoyed having a great, big plate of fresh fruit in the house for days afterwards, that soon she was ordering an enormous fruit platter (at great expense!) every single week.

Greg's friend must have been the one putting the platters together, because he took Greg aside one day and said 'Look, these fruit platters are for special occassions! Can't your Mum cut fruit?!?!'

{If only he knew our mother... She swears there was a fruit bowl in our house when we were growing up, but neither me, nor my brothers ever saw it. haha}

My brother's fiance Emma is a super creative gal and made these sweet little Reindeer ornaments out of pegs, which she placed on everyone's plates;

As well as these Reindeer Candy Canes;

So cute!

The decorative theme was reindeers this year;

Here are the girls, with presents from Mimi and Poppy piled high;

My parents asked me for some ideas for the girls' Christmas presents. I suggested a few things [this] or [that] or [this] or [that]... and they very generously bought ALL of them and more (One present would have been more than enough!). Not to mention all the beautiful presents from Aunties AND Uncles AND the Kris Kringle gifts from Santa.

Elly was very excited to see Santa walked past the window and ran outside to squeal in delight at him ringing his bell;

Livvie was slightly more suspicious, asking Mimi, 'Is that Poppy in there?'...

...to a resounding 'No! Of course not!' from everyone gathered. (Dad, this might signal the last year of Santa making a personal appearance on Christmas morning!)

Afterwards, it was on to lunch at our place, with Nick's family;

We had a traditional lunch with ham, turkey with cranberry sauce, potatoes, sweet potatoes, greens and two salads. Nicks Mum made a beautiful pudding and Ice cream cake for dessert;

I was supposed to make a trifle, but um....totally forgot about it the night before! So I whipped up another Choc Ripple cake in the morning, this time topped with Milo and Turkish Delight;

Nick finally got a chance to play with his the girls new train set;

Then it was time for an afternoon swim with cousins and a play with the new pool toys;

And lots of jumping on the new trampoline for Nick and the girls;

Then at 5pm, we exchanged yet more gifts with Nick's family and...

Needless to say, we were all exhausted after such a big day!

It was wonderful;