Love, bubs and life on our little farm

Broken finger and all, it was a gorgeous Christmas. It all started with a peaceful Christmas Eve (although Jase and I were exhausted from a very stressful night before - but that is a whole blog post in itself!), with family arriving all day to settle in for the celebrations. Our farm work and landscaping was completed and we enjoyed grabbing a few last minute groceries, soaking up the chaos and christmas spirit before settling onto the deck for sparkling wine and cheese platters.

We tucked two super excited girls into bed at a respectable hour before we knuckled down to cooking the Christmas dessert (me) and constructing the piece de resistance Santa present, the trampoline (Jase and the other men). I found the horses in the dark paddock to get them to leave bite marks in the carrots left out for the reindeer and cajoled my Dad into eating the bright green xmas tree biscuit Elka had left out for Santa. Jase and I marvelled at just how much we had spoilt the kids when we packed up their Santa sacks and stockings before we all fell exhausted into bed.

It was delightful to be woken by the happy voice of Elka exclaiming that Santa had bought her bubbles, but it wasn't so delightful that it was 5.20am! However, we somewhat blearily watched the girls dig through their presents, laughing at Miss Elka peering into her Santa sack and announcing that "oh Santa hasn't given me a trampoline". We constructed an excuse to get her to the back door where she stood in shock looking at her shiny new trampoline before turning to us with tears in her eyes - it was beautiful.

We had Jase's family tradition of ham and eggs for breakfast (doesn't go quite so well with my family tradition of a two course hot lunch but I guess excess is somewhat suitable at Christmas!) before finally tucking into the massive pile of presents overflowing far from under the tree. I was spoilt with a great new laptop, Peter Alexander Pjs, a one-off handmade art-deco bracelet, perfume, dayspa voucher, Horseland voucher, expensive eye cream, books and so on, so on.

My big hot lunch was a success - the lemon and garlic butterflied lamb was the biggest hit although the turkey served with roasted plums was a pretty close second, the fetta, pancetta and green bean side was delicious and the Christmas trifle was lovely. The french champagne way too easy to drink and we settled in for an afternoon of chatting and laughing at the girls playing with their million and one presents.

We finished the celebrations with Boxing Day at the sales (I scored a great Cue dress and some lovely Forever New shoes for over 50% off). And we are now throughly enjoying the quiet of our holidays, we have hit the beach, met with friends and have plans to spend tomorrow at Dreamworld as a treat for the girls. I can't believe it is almost time to think about New Years! I haven't even picked an outfit for the party we are going to!

Christmas is just magical with little kids and I was ever mindful of just how lucky I am to have such a peaceful celebration with my healthy family. Sometimes I feel like I can't contain my appreciation, like my heart is just overflowing.

Such a blessed Christmas.