As we left for Europe on the first day of December the previous year, we didn’t put up any Christmas decorations or lights! Well this year they all had to go up again, so the house was suitable festive both inside and out! It was fun pulling out some of the special baubles and decorations we bought on our Europe trip.
The outside lights….
After getting a year off putting up and taking down all those lights, the reindeer were finally let out of the roof, for a good feed! It’s always hot and windy putting them all up, but it does add to the neighbourhood cheer. Soren has been coding his light sequences and will have plenty more done by next year for me to video no doubt!
Christmas day….
With school and all the many sport and music activities done for the year, Christmas day was finally up on us! Zinnia was of course the most excited, but closely followed by her older siblings. Zinnia was most interested in her ‘giant boxes’. It was all about the size of the presents. We had a great time opening all our gifts from each other, and as usual you had to try everything on – at the same time! Always a fun game.
Soon the extended family started to arrive and of course there were more presents……
The food….
We had a full hot lunch. There were many snacks to start and if you could fit it in turkey, roast chicken, ham, a million different gravies and sauces and array of yummy vegetable dishes. Lorraine had decided us vegetarians had mushroom and brie wellingtons. I made sure mine was not on a different coloured plate 😉
If you had any room after the main course eating fest there was dessert. Figgy pudding that we’d made a few years earlier and had been resting in our freezer pudding collection, home made custard (with brandy for some), mango daiquiri trifle, semifredo with white chocolate, sour cherries and pistachio and some Christmas brownies. Everyone was in a food coma after that!
The fun….
We might not have been in the Austrian Alps this year in minus 12 with plenty of snow, but the same crew reunited (plus a few who stayed behind in Australia). It was much warmer and no visits to the Alpenzoo or up to Hungerburg on cable cars on Christmas day, but we did have plenty of food and reminiscing.
We made a ‘chilled gluhwein punch’ for memories of all those Christmas gluhweins…… and I bought everyone festive Nordic socks so we could think of colder Christmases. It was a bit warm for Christmas jumpers this year but we did put our socks on for a festive photo!
Christmas 2025 was done and dusted but we spent plenty of time chatting about all the exciting upcoming travel for 2026…….. and there are plenty of adventures awaiting!