Merry 'Faux' Christmas!

So it's christmas eve.  As a child this was by far the most exciting night of the year.  Nowadays there's always a risk that the weight of holding everyone's christmas expectations, the quest for a picture perfect celebration, the bone crunching fatigue from all that baking, holiday crafting, shopping, wrapping and driving everyone to endless celebrations will catch up with me and I'll have an epic christmas meltdown.    So my christmas wish for all the grownups out there is that you slow down, embrace imperfection and have a calm, jolly and snuggly christmas with your peeps… because after a few days everyone will have forgotten about the food and the gifts but everyone is going to remember you losing your shit.  Merry christmas lovlies!

T graduates...

T picked a big bunch of rhubarb, lavender and herbs to give to his teacher.

We celebrated 'faux' christmas with my family yesterday but since I haven't had time to sort through photos yet I thought we could flash back to last week for a look at T's last day of kinder (captions under photos). 

The kids put on a very sweet nativity play.  T was supposed to play an angel but he was nervous about having to sing so made a hasty costume change and played a cow instead.  Apparently mooing is a lot less threatening than performing an angelic chorus!  Sadly I can't share photos of the play as I didn't managed to snap a decent cow portrait!

T getting his 'graduation' certificate.

There was a party with lots of 'pinterest' worthy food made by parents who seemingly had much more energy than me!

Berries packaged up for more teacher gifts.

My christmas anthem this year...

School's out for summer...

Last day of school today!  Minty made these necklaces for her teachers using felt and wooden beads.  I love her colour combinations!

After school we headed to the beach with friends for fish and chips.  There was plenty of seagull chasing, crab catching and general hilarity.  We even got to watch a pelican being released back into the wild.  A great start to the holidays!

In which we search for the perfect gift...

It must be close to Christmas because this morning the Mr. announced that we should probably start our Christmas shopping.  We entered the first shop and he gestured at an item on the display table nearest the entrance.  

"How about that for my mum?" he asked.

"Um… it's $1000.  Do you think that might be vaguely out of our price range?" I replied, my voice an octave higher than usual.  He huffed and gave me a look that made it clear I was just being difficult.

"I'm really good at Christmas shopping," he proclaimed. "It's easy when you're not here."

Meanwhile Turi selected himself an oven thermometer and announced that he would really like "this little clock".  No matter what kind of store we are in, Turi always manages to find something he desperately 'needs'.  He is like a little bower bird finding treasures on every shelf while I helplessly shriek after him, "touch with your eyes, not your hands!!".  I can totally relate though.  I keep finding items I want for myself… a gorgeous new basket perfect for veggie box, a set of vintage wooden mooncake moulds, some cute little ceramic berry baskets.  And yet, somehow when I'm looking for other people all I can see are ceramic pineapples.

By the end of the day I was so exhausted, I was staggering about like a drunken schoolie in platform stripper heals.  Sadly I'll be heading back to the shops again tomorrow, to finish off the last few gifts.

These photos are totally unrelated because who takes photos when they're shopping?  These are from yesterdays play group at the beach.

The christmas tree...

She still lets me light the stove...

In which I randomly resume blogging...

I'm resisting the urge to be completely overtaken by Christmas panic!  This end of the year seems to be an endless whirlwind of christmas parties, school breakups, concerts, Kris Kringles, and catch-ups with friends.  Any one of these events taken individually would be great fun but the ceaseless back to back celebrating is making my eye twitch.  I'm starting to wish I could hide behind the Christmas tree in my pyjamas, with a copy of Great Expectations until the parties are all over!!  I haven't even started my Christmas shopping and it's less than a week until we celebrate with my side of the family.  But instead of spiralling into complete scrooge-like behaviour, I'm popping on the Christmas carols, channelling Mary and trying to emanate an aura of calm ("It's totally fine Joseph, don't worry about the manure.  I'll just birth our baby on this hay bale and he can sleep in the feed trough.")

In pursuit of this calm, today we headed to a local berry farm to pick a mountain of juicy Logan, Silvan, Young and Boysen berries.  We'll package up our goodies for teacher gifts.  It was great to avoid the shops, support a local family and get the kids involved in the gift gathering.

While we're on a berry theme I thought I'd sneak in some pics of the berry tarts I made for last night's CFA christmas bash… because yum!