Looking back to Christmas Eve, 2014...

In the post Christmas period, I had a number of posts organised ready to insert photos and publish, but as you know there were a number of alterations to those plans DH, the family and I had had. :-).

For a number of years, we have had the family (plus friends) come for a Christmas meal and present giving on Christmas Eve. Some years, the number of guests was over 20, but this year, we were down to 6. No we haven't been deserted by our loved ones, the girls and nephews are all grown up now; some were spending time with their partners' families, some were working and some are overseas.
Having such a small number meant that I was able to attend an early evening service at our church which had always been difficult for me to attend as I would be putting the finishing touches to the big meal...and last minute cleaning. It's a Family Service and the local children help to 'dress the crib'/manger/nativity scene.

I arrived early but within 15 minutes the pews were filled...
Young O, who lives with his family in the old rectory had been helping set up the projector and had a bit of fun with making shadow animals with his hands! lol

During the ceremony, all the children selected a figurine from the table at the back and walked up the aisle to place these figures in the 'stable'.

Then it was home ready to celebrate with 2 of our girls and their partners. Before dinner though, we had a special call on Skype from DH's youngest who is working in Canada. She is spending this season in Ottawa so that she can experience a White Christmas, something very alien to Aussies! lol. She had set her alarm for 4.30am after a late night, so was very sleepy.

Her sister told her that I had made potato bake and zucchini slice, two of her favourites...so I held each one up in front of the iPad camera! lol. We really are fortunate with how modern technology allows such wonderful and easy communication.
Proud dad taking photos of the Skype session...I had already been taking pics with my phone...

Miss Nikki had sent back gifts with a friend who had travelled back to Brisbane from Canada earlier in December...one of DH's gifts was a Santa hat...but it was so hot...too hot for a Brisbane Christmas! lol

We may have been small in numbers, but we had a lovely evening. Later, when DH and I were seeing the young people off, DH noticed there was something in our letter box...it was a parcel...all the way from eQuilter in Colorado.

I opened it before the evening ended. It was a Xmas present to myself...4 knitting themed fabrics to add to my stash :-)

The tally of blog posts show that this is post #1001. So my last post about our calendar was #1000 and I hadn't even noticed! lol. However, I have done some 'reruns' (at least 9) of posts over the years, describing them as 'Encores', so technically I guess the 1000 post milestone still is a little way off.