Christmas came...and went!

Yep! Christmas 2016 has now been celebrated, and except for a Christmas meal with DsD1 and Dan on Wednesday night, it's over for another year. ( they spent the actual day with Dan's extended family who all gathered in the town of Brigalow for Christmas)

So DH and I had our usual Christmas Eve family gathering for all family who could make it.
Anthea wore her Christmas dress that DH and I had bought her in November (hoping it would still fit by the end of December) and now she is crawling, I realised that Eduardo's water bowl would have to be relocated as soon as I took the photo!

As well as Anthea being on the move these days, DH and I are also  babysitting DD2's dog Jimmy while they are away at Rainbow Beach. So that's two potential escape artists, so DH and I had bought a gate for the back steps of the veranda. DH took one look at the instructions and was a bit flummoxed. But two of our sons in law are a builder and mechanical engineer respectively and I had asked for their help. 'Fifteen minutes tops, to get that installed!' they both said...and they were right!

 

 

Because DsD2 wanted to get little Anthea fed and off to bed by about 7ish, we gave Anthea her gifts before this. There was a bundle of things for her but I think the favourite was the mother quokka, complete with a baby in her pouch that we had bought on Rottnest Island.

And the 'touch and feel' animal books from Albany were pretty popular too.

 

This year I was thrilled to have my nephew from Sydney fly up to Brisbane on Christmas Eve, so he and my niece joined us. My niece Jenny, is the Coronary Care nurse and she had to dash off after dessert to start her shift at Prince Charles Hospital. Max and Lucy my great niece and nephew were spending Christmas with their dad Eric...a few changes there since last Christmas.

On Christmas Day DH and I went to the second church service in the morning, as I was serving...so a little sleep in! The Nativity had been set up at the Family service on Christmas Eve... no dinosaurs or exotic animals like lions, tigers and giraffes were in the stable this year...unlike some years in our other parish church, when 'littlies' want to put 'special' animal toys there. :-)

Christmas lunch was at DH's younger brother's place with all that extended family in attendance...always a lovely meal. This year my sister in law's nephew brought some afternoon tea items that he had prepared...my goodness, the spread was overwhelming. I asked DH to take a photo of this spread as I had forgotten to take my phone...he only took a photo of the multi layer pavlova, not the 2 fancy trifles, some fig pastries, profiteroles and honey puffs. There was a lot, plus my SiL's signature cannoli.

We came home to our place around 4pm and were visited by DD1 and Cam. They were hoping that I still had some of the rumballs (well brandy balls really as I used that spirit not rum) I had made, left. Apparently the box of them that I'd given Cam and DD1, had all been 'accidentally' eaten by my daughter and Cam had had none. :-(. Luckily there were some left here, so hopefully Cam can finally try some.
Despite having visitors, DH and Jimmy were caught snoozing on the cane lounge...

 So that was Christmas!