Today we start our adventure to the middle of nowhere.. literally!
We are driving up to Auckland to stay the night with my parents, tomorrow we catch the early morning flight to Dunedin where we will spend a couple of days visiting my Grandma and a few friends, and then on New Years Eve we are driving into the heart of Central Otago, to a little town called Naseby. It is actually at the end of the road, where TV reception is bad at the best of times, cell phone reception is only possible on one hill and the internet doesn’t even exist! :) We will be staying with Mr Wonderful’s family at their little holiday house. It should be a fantastic few days, as Miss D hasn’t met her cousins before. I think she is going to love them!
Here are a few photos from a previous trip to Naseby, so you can imagine where we will be.
I won’t be posting anything for a while, as we wont have access to the internet… but I hope that you all have a wonderful New Years. Stay safe and remember to give your friends and family lots of hugs :)
Super delicious honey glazed ham cooked by my amazing husband!
Yummy Christmas lunch
Miss Delightful got too many presents to put photos up, but she really enjoyed opening all the gifts! We all had a lovely day celebrating Jesus’s birth!
It’s Christmas Eve today! Yay :) That means tomorrow is Christmas day… I’m just a little bit excited!
This is the first year that we have been at home for Christmas since we got married 6 years ago. So we are looking forward to starting our own family traditions.
And today is filled with lots of fun things too. Miss Delightful and I stayed home this morning, she is now asleep. When she wakes up she will have lots of visitors! Mr Wonderful’s brother, wife & 3 kids are driving up the country to spend tomorrow with family in Auckland. They are stopping off here for afternoon tea! Miss D and I haven’t seen them since October last year (Miss D was only 3 months old!). So it will be cool to see her with the cousins (3 girls)!
Then we are sharing dinner with our amazing friends and their kids who have become Aunty, Uncle and cousins to Miss Delightful. And then we are being brave and going to the Christmas Eve service at church, we wont get home until after 9pm (which is a few hours past Miss D’s bedtime!) so it will be interesting to see how she handles it all.
And then we wake up tomorrow and more fun and festivities will happen!
I hope you all have a happy and safe Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!
With Christmas only a few days away, it is easy to get caught up in the commercial side of Christmas. I know I certainly do, not on purpose though! So here are two little reminders (a poem and a video) of the true meaning of Christmas:
My God-mother sent me this poem today in an e-mail. I thought it was a good reminder of telling our kids the real reason, it’s easy for them to learn about Santa and all that comes with that, but do we tell them enough about baby Jesus? The poem was written by Margaret Wright in 1977!
A little boy, so still and quiet, by his mother’s knee,
Sat gazing up in wonder at the little Christmas tree.
His little voice in earnest, now the job was done,
Asked the age old question, “What is Christmas, Mum?”
“Well, it’s Christmas trees and turkey and lots of lovely toys
That Santa Claus brings to all good girls and boys.
It’s lots of fun and laughter and fairy lights so bright,
And a busy time for Santa, bringing toys on Christmas night.”
The little boy sat in thought but still was not content;
“I know about Santa but that’s not what I meant.
I know about toys and lights and pretty Christmas trees,
But where did Christmas come from? Who made Christmas, please?”
His mother looked upon his face, so filled with love and trust,
Although she found it difficult, answer him she must.
So she told him sharply, not knowing what to say;
“Little baby Jesus was born on Christmas Day.”
“Well, who is baby Jesus?” she heard the small voice say.
“Why is HE so special? Why is Christmas HIS birthday?
Tell me all about Him please, I still don’t understand.”
So she sat him on her knee and gently took his hand.
She told the Christmas story and why it means so much.
She told it with simplicity and a childlike touch;
Of how Mary gave the world, God’s little boy,
And why we celebrate His birthday, with happiness and joy.
The little boy was fast asleep, happy now at last,
But on his mother’s face, the tears were falling fast.
For Christmas had been empty, for so many years gone by.
For all those hollow celebrations, she couldn’t help but cry.
Her little boy had taught her, as children sometimes can,
That true Christmas celebrations, are sometimes lost to man,
And in eating Christmas dinner and having one more drink,
Grown ups never wonder, or ever stop to think.
For throughout the year we celebrate with lots of fun and fuss,
Only on a ‘special’ day that means a lot to us.
For if it isn’t ‘special’, there would be no reason to,
Celebrate and decorate, the way we usually do
So if we celebrate Christmas, with all the fun and mirth,
We must believe in Christmas and a very special birth.
Or there would be no point, to celebrate this way.
It would be an empty celebration, on that very special day.
And the other one has been floating around on the internet for a few weeks now, but I thought I would link to it as well. St Paul’s church in Auckland (that we went to for a few months!) created a video telling the Christmas story by the children from the church. It is very sweet and well worth watching!
Yesterday I attempted to take some Christmas photos of Miss Delightful. She wasn’t in a very helpful mood, so of the 200 photos I took, I think only 3 or 4 are keepers! I used the same tinsel and Santa hat as last year. So here is a comparison for you… the facial expression hasn’t changed that much (still not impressed with the tinsel!).
