O' Christmas Tree!

It's been a while since my last post!  This has been a crazy last few weeks, but now everything is settling down and we can finally enjoy a little bit of the merry season.  We plan to have another Christmas at home again, which is my favorite way to celebrate.  I like to keep things simple rather than go all out for the holidays.  In fact, I really have to muster up a lot of energy to do all the extra things that seem to come so naturally to other people during the holidays.

I had plans to finally make stockings for all of us this year, but that did not happen.  Oh well, it will be something to look forward to next year.  I did manage to make and finish the tree skirt that I had been planning on making for a while.  Here it is all finished and ready for the presents to be delivered--which thankfully has been all taken care of already!  I had fun experimenting with custom quilting this Lonestar quilt. 

Funny, growing up, our Christmas tree would have had the presents sitting under it right away to be admired for weeks up until the day of opening rather than the delivering on Christmas Eve that my husband and I do now.  With our family Swedish heritage we always opened presents on Christmas Eve after dinner and church services.  On Christmas day Santa would deliver presents in our stockings that were hung by the chimney (with care).  They were usually just small gifts like candy and little things that would fit into a stocking.  It was fun to wake up to the "extra" little things that Santa had brought, but we had our main fun of gift giving the night before.  It never got confusing either, as we knew that our main gifts came from our parents.  Looking back, I think that it must have been nice for my parents as they were able to sleep in on Christmas morning!  Of course my brother and I did wake up very early to play with all our new toys, but they would have had several hours of peace on Christmas morning while we played.

Our Christmases were usually rather peaceful as well.  We stayed at home--no need to go to church as we did that the night before;)  We would have a nice cooked breakfast and usually a ham or turkey for the main meal.  This is the way I remember Christmases to be anyway.

Over here we are still trying to find our own traditions.  I have conceded to celebrating with gift opening on Christmas morning.  I have gotten used to such things as Christmas cake and Christmas pudding--still don't like them though.  I have sort gotten used to Christmas crackers (bon bons), which is a tradition I still don't quite understand.  If you haven't heard of them before you can read about them here.

Many people ask me what it is like to have Christmas in the middle of summer.  Well, I suppose the best answer I can give to that is just to say that you just get used to it.  I sort of feel out of whack though with my seasons even after living here for seven years.  In the back of my mind I think Christmas is the signal for the cold season to really kick off, but then I realize I'm all backwards and upside down with that!  Here Christmas is all about the beach, the outdoors and a pause between school terms.  It is more of a shutdown of everything rather than the short holiday season it is in the States.

Anyway, I wish you all a Merry Christmas (I don't feel a need to be politically correct here as this is my own blog).