♥
Every year we buy a gift for the K Mart Wishing Tree. We did try and buy something for a child the age Saskia would have been each year but after we discovered the Hasbro Sale the opportunity to buy a super cool present at a super cool price was just too good to pass up. So now we buy whatever is going that will make someones day- this year we got a big Tonka truck for some wee dude out there.
Last year for the first time we donated gifts to the Women's Refuge both for kids and a grown-up. IN that situation you actually get the age and sex of the child you are buying for which is cool.... but also meant that I went a bit over the top. It was really cool to buy for a grown-up too though... nice to know that someone who was obviously having a fairly crappy year would have a little high point. We haven't done it this year but will certainly try to again in the future.
I try and make sure that we put some good stuff into the food bank bin each year around this time as well. I like to do canned fruit because it's yummy and good for you and I always wonder about some of the stink stuff that you see in there sometimes!
The same goes for the SPCA a couple of cans of cat or dog food don't go a miss especially as this is the height of kitten season and pet abandonment time!
In the last year that I taught at school we did a term where we looked at ways to give back to the community. The kids went to a rest home to sing carols and gave out hand made cards to the residents taking a bit of time to stop and chat. They also reprised their Chocolate Brownie business raising money to buy gifts for the Salvation Army to give out- we were lucky to get a good deal from Hasbro for that as well. And they volunteered their time at a location of their choice- some just helped out in classes at school and some made a big effort to go to places like the SPCA and do some volunteering.
In Dunedin their was a 'Grant a Wish' Scheme faciltated by the local paper older members of the community rang in their wishes and these were recorded and then other citizens rang and got the details of the wish or wishes they could grant. Among other things I recall taking Cat food to one lady and home baking to another. A third wanted to go out for a drive on Christmas Day and so I went and picked her up and took her for a big drive including up Mt Cargill from which you can get 360 deg views of the whole district and city. I gave her a present as well before dropping her home.
When the kids are older- perhaps even when they have fled home and we have Christmas just the two of us we'd like to go and volunteer to help do Christmas lunch at the City Mission or some other similar organisation- it would be good to do with the kids when they are older to give them an insight to just how good they have it as well as engendering in them the will to help others.
Of course there is also the option of giving goats and chickens in lieu of gifts to poorer communities in Africa etc. But I actually prefer the idea of working through Kiva. Through Kiva you can loan money to people in poverty and give them the opportunity to help themselves and improve their life and that of their community. You can loan as little as $25 you choose exactly who you want to loan to and you get a background on the person and what they want to do with the money. Kiva has a 98% repayment rate and once your money is repaid you can choose to get it back or you can reinvest in another person or group. It's pretty cool I reckon.
Christchurch With Sam and Caity 1996- the first year Les and I were together at Christmas
Hamilton 1997 Kieran approx 4 weeks old
Merenia's First Santa Photo
Dunedin with Caitlin
Will's First Christmas- 4 days old- yeah that's me 4 days post major surgery!
The second part of the prompt asked about wrapping and giving traditions. We wrap our gifts in a fairly standard manner. Although I do remember getting seriously creative one Christmas and sticking lollies and all sorts of cool stuff like plastic bugs and such on the outside of the gifts and going nuts with the ribbon. But now days the sheer volume of pressies with three kids and the cost of Christmas food wise makes getting posh with the wrapping not a happening thing!
Mmmmm-mmmm rocking out that head gear!!
If you had have told me when I was 18 that I'd have a fake Christmas Tree one day I would NEVER have believed you. When we went to Australia trees were $40 for a twig. FORTY DOLLARS hello? We spent $110 on a fake tree. that was in 1998 so that means we have now put it up for the 12th time meaning that's it's cost us less than $10 a year and it's still going strong. I do REALLY miss the real Christmas tree smell and if we won lotto I'd most certainly go back to real especially as they are so flash and pretty up here in Auckland! But I'm happy with the fake- the needles were a pain to vacuum and we invariably ended up with sticky gum on the decorations and it never really looked all that hot by the time the big guy made his drop.
One particularly memorable tree getting occasion happened around 1995 my friend Micheal and I drove the triumph up to the Kilmog Hill and scoped out a nice looking self seeded pine on a bank on the side of the road. Micheal, saw in hand, jumped out of the car and made his way up the bank to the chosen tree. I parked up the car a 100 or so metres away up the top of the hill. I couldn't see Micheal but I could see the violent shaking of the tree. After it fell I looked out for a space in the Motorway traffic, tooted my horn and drove down the hill. At the same time Micheal dragged the tree down to the side of the road- we stuffed it into the car and headed home laughing. :-)
And you've got to love this quote from Blackadder's Christmas Carol:
♥
One sight I didn't see as a child was the now infamous in our family "Crown Street Lights Display". Someone (maybe even me) had heard that a bunch of houses in Crown street had done a full on job of decorating up their frontages with lights so one evening after dusk we went out in the car to check it out. They hadn't not one light on one house anywhere. It became a family joke.
When I think of it now I would say that the Christmas decorations on George St, the main street in Dunedin were lame. But back then I thought they were awesome. I loved the way that one day there were none and the next you could see them all the way from one end of the street right to the Octagon at the centre of town. I loved that they meant that Capping was about to happen, Santa would be here soon and following on from that there was the Summer A & P Show, the Festival procession down the main street and Orientation about 3 months worth of fun and excitement in true Dunedin fashion.
The last thing that wasn't ever intentional but that I absolutely loved was the one Christmas that I spent at Carey's Bay. Our house was on top of the hill and it was around the corner from Port Chalmers and the city lights and had a view directly down the harbour to Tairoa heads there were practically no street lights.. If you have ever seen Dunedin Harbour you'd know that there is a channel marked for the boats all the way down on the North side the lights are green and on the south they are red... it is a perfect Christmas necklace on the water a string of Christmas lights snaking out to the ocean. Peaceful and twinkling.
♥
♥
Number one on my list of Christmas books it The Grinch Who Stole Christmas By Dr. Seuss- it Rocks.
A book of Christmas by Tasha Tudor. I had this as a kid and I just loved it it has an advent calendar in the middle and some other pop-up and spinner type bits. I love the traditional illustrations. It talks a little about the practices surrounding Christmas in other countries and also about the Christian Christmas Story.
Every house should have at least one copy of "The Night Before Christmas" and it should be a good one with fantastic illustrations like this one!
Love, love, love the Church Mice books! And this is one of the best and funniest. The illustrations are fantastic in their detail and comedy and the story is really funny as well.
This is a sequel to "The Little Mouse The Red Ripe Strawberry and The Big Hungry Bear". Cool illustrations nice story and a great message.
The Jolly Christmas Postman has lots of envelopes with letters and cards and other fun stuff- the interactiveness of the story is what makes it so much fun.
I've had this book since I was a kid and there's nothing spectactular about it just a nice sweet story that I really like.
We love Lucy Cousins and we love Maisy- so of course we love Maisy's Christmas.
Another one from my childhood.
Even if you aren't religious I think it's important for kids to have an understanding of the Christian story of Christmas because it's really hard to truly respect the beliefs of others if you know nothing about them. How can you avoid saying something rude or offensive if you don't know the situation. This Nativity Story is beautifully illustrated by Julie Vivas. It tells the story with some traditional language which may be a bit of a challenge for younger children but add an interesting dynamic for older ones.
