CHRISTMAS!

18 Sleeps until Christmas!!! Ding Ding Ding!!  Is that sending you into a frenzy of mental note making? Such as;

·         Write Christmas cards and letters, and actually get them to all of the recipients this year,

·         make and hang a pudding,

·         dust off the Christmas decorations and pray you don’t find dead mice in them,

·         take the kids to the Magic Cave,

·         timing and booking your next hair cut and dye to make sure it’s fresh for the day, and for the hopeful week or two at the beach after, and

·         purchase a good supply of batteries for Christmas Day…. and what else….

·         Oh, and shopping. The SHOPPING!!!

Ah, it all sounds too hectic.

We put a lot of effort into Christmas don’t we?  Even the ‘simple’ affairs require some planning. I like it big though. It’s a fantastic time of the year, and just remember, someone was born in order to give us this privilege (I suspect it was John Sands or David Jones!).

We like the lead up to Christmas in our house. Little kids mean big excitement, and there are lots of local events such as ‘Carols by Candlelight’ and the street parade to fuel those feelings. There’s the daily fight over the Advent calendar chocolate (you’re no match for the estrogen monster kids, back down now if you know what’s good for you!), and then the count down in the unit of ‘sleeps’ and an abundance of Christmas music.  And if you’ve got a joker in the house, singing carols with alternative lyrics. Although, I’m not sure our kids will ever know what TAA was or, who Wonder Woman is, and what she lost!  

On Christmas eve, there’s the special sacrificial offering to FC of one of Daddy’s favourite beers, and one of Mummy’s favourite biscuits.  You know it’s appreciated kids, and I’m just waiting for someone to suggest that Santa actually really loves a bottle of champagne for the trip home. He’s probably a bit flash too, so best it be Bolly!

The traditions vary from family to family, but the sentiment is always the same. Unity.  It’s about coming together and celebrating life, breaking bread and sharing the day. It’s about remembering those who can’t be with us for Chrissy, and not punching the ones that can.  It’s about making ridiculous jokes over slightly blackened pork, pudding and bon bons. It’s about still laughing at the Uncle that manages to find a $10 note instead of a coin in his dessert, even though you’ve seen it 30 times before. And, it’s still funny. I still love it, and I can’t imagine never looking forward to it.

Then there’s the post lunch snooze off between the Dads.  It might be from staying up all night to put together trampolines and bikes that ‘have instructions written in foreign languages’ or ‘need another hole drilled here!” Or maybe it’s because the little people of the house wake before you’ve even entered that deep REM sleep to see if the big man in red has been?  Sometimes I feel that jolly old man gets far too much credit.  Did he get up at 2am for the toy sale? Did he suffer the trolley rage and smashed ankles in the race for the last of the good cheap ribbon?  No, nor did he have his perfect parked swiped at the last turn, or his feet swell up to look like puffer fish trapped in Langdon’s new season summer sandals. (Actually, maybe that’s why he has to wear those awful black gumboots – there are no elves, he’s been hitting the toy sales and has fat feet like me!)

So whatever your normal Christmas is, it would seem that it is nearing, and FAST!  Indeed there are only 25 days to taunt the kids with, ‘don’t do that, Father Christmas will put you on the naughty list’ and, ‘LOOK, did you see that? There was an elf checking up on you!’   So excuse me whilst I go find merriment in the house of May, and here’s fingers crossed for a successful district harvest, a safe and happy summer for you all and a very happy holiday season, because love it or loathe it, Christmas is coming!

Shoes

I can’t remember my first favourite pair of shoes. As a child of the eighties, it might have been a tossup between jelly sandals (awful rubbery rubbing-your-heels-to-flesh summer shoes) and Bubblegummers (A ridiculously garish pair of royal blue sneakers with bright laces and assorted coloured eyelets). 

What I do remember is that feeling of absolute glee and excitement when I got something new and being so eager to wear them that I couldn’t sleep that night. And bless our Miss 5’s little heart, she’s the same, if not more excitable.

These, are $8 shoes from Kmart. Eight dollars I’d spend three times more to replicate how happy they have made Lucy.  

Pink frilled shoes with floral inserts, that’s a trifecta for a girly girl like Lucy. The fact that Daddy Cool is happy with the before-harvest price tag, or that I was pleased to have found something suitable for a majority of her outfits in her size is moot, she only cares that she has new pretty pink shoes.

And how do you test the magnificence of such shoes?  You put them on and go and stand in front of the mirror and dance to Wham’s ‘Last Christmas’,  that’s how!  (Well that’s how Lucy tested them, and it seemed to work because I got at least $8 worth of entertainment just from watching her, and she was pleased with how ‘dancy’ they were).

Daddy Cool should enjoy this purchase, relish it even. I can only imagine the price tag and the devotion for shoes will only increase with age. As will the desire for cosmetics, handbags and new outfits.  One day, shoes will be expressly for vanity, but at 5 years old, they’re so much more than that to Lucy. They are transportation devices to imagined worlds. Worlds where there are dance parties, fairies and magical wonders that only children can conger up. All this happiness for only eight dollars. I’ve hit some sort of budgetary jackpot – sign me up for ten more pairs!