Geneva - Home sweet Home

We are in Geneva. Home sweet home. Well one of my homes, this has been home for most of my life. The Christmas tree was kept undecorated for me, so I got to spend the morning listening to Christmas music and decorate the tree. My favourite thing to do. :) I've also been doing some touristy photo taking around Geneva for the kids at work. Hoping for some snow, so I can get some photos of that...but it's not looking likely.

It's nice to be home.

Why Must You Do This To Us?

It's that time of the year again, where people start making you cry with their Christmas ads. In Australia we don't get as many sad Christmas ads, so I'm not subjected to being made to cry every time I watch TV. However, through my Strictly Come Dancing following I discovered that John Lewis had started to show their Christmas ad, and curiously looked it up. I'm not entirely sure why I looked it up, they are notorious for making people cry about Christmas, and I am one big cry baby, but I did and I cried.
If you don't want to watch the ad, it's basically about a bear who has to hibernate through Christmas. The bear and his hare friend seem pretty sad about this. So, for Christmas the hare gives his bear friend an alarm clock so he can wake up for Christmas and enjoy it with his friends. This should be a happy and sweet story, but they do it to the song "Somewhere only we know" and that seems to make it super sad.

Why do British Christmas ads have to be so sad?

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas Everybody! :D

The above are photos taken on Xmas 2008, but I love them so much, and I miss my family a lot around this time of the year, that I felt they were very appropriate for my Christmas wishes. Plus, there is no snow in sight, so it could be totally believable that they were taken in Australia and not France!

Christmas has only just started so I can't say if it's been great or not yet, but it's feeling awesome so far. We had a lovely sleep in, then we got dressed all Christmassy. James is wearing red shorts and a green polo shirt; I'm wearing my 'Santa's Helper' T-shirt and Santa hat. We're listening to Christmassy music and generally feeling happy. :)

Wishing you all the most wonderful of Christmases!

Christmas Wrapping

This morning I did our Christmas present wrapping. I LOVE wrapping present and making them looking pretty. It really put me in a good mood. To make my morning even better I got a text to say my new glasses are ready to be picked up, so on Boxing Day I shall be getting myself some lovely new glasses!

All that is left on my 'To do' list for today is to make some scrummy Salmon Pate. Mmmm!

Christmas Goodies Breakfast

One of the perks of working in Child Care is that you get a whole bunch of goodies at Christmas. This years goodies all came in the form of unhealthy foods. That's not to say they weren't all absolutely delicious. We ate a few as a scrummy breakfast this morning. (We didn't eat all that is displayed. We shared the gingerbread man and had a cupcake each.)

Christmas Present Wrapping

There are many things I love about Christmas, wrapping presents is high up that list. For as long as I can remember I have LOVED wrapping presents. I really enjoy making things look pretty and being creative with ribbons, tissue paper and decorations. I like making the wrapping look so good that people don't necessarily want to open it. My recent present wrapping love consists of that plain brown wrapping paper and awesome glitzy accessories. I was hoping to wrap my Secret Santa gift like that, but had trouble finding the plain brown wrapping paper (seriously, all year round I see it everywhere, Christmas hits and it's gone!) so I settled for some plain gold paper instead, and lots of awesome bows in different sizes. 

Here are the results. :) I'm pretty happy with it. I'm going to write the recipient of the gifts name to the left so it ends near the big green bow. :D 

Christmas Nails

I got myself some festive nail varnish, and I'm loving it! I painted my left ring finger and right thumb nail green and the rest of them a beautiful red. The colours are wonderfully festive and I feel happy whenever I see them. :)

I have also added a deep pink Santa hat to the top of my hat for work. I feel awesome in it! :D

Getting Ready for Christmas

So, I decided to go for it and spend a little money every month so I can share photos. Yay. I am happy with the decision. I've been missing being able to post things here, plus I have plans, small plans, to slowly start making my blog feel more 'me'.

If you didn't already know, it's December. In my world that means only one thing: CHRISTMAS! I am a HUGE fan of Christmas, I don't know if I've made that at all clear the last couple of years, but it's my season, it's my holiday. I love it. It is happiness. So, naturally I have been Christmas-ing it up at work. I have been told a couple of times by the room leader to pack away my the Christmas craft I was doing with kids so that they can eat, or have so staff can do some serious tidying before the holidays...but Christmas activities are way more important in my book. I've tried to cram in as much Christmas crafting as possible into the last two weeks so that our room can look super awesome and festive, and it turns out to have been a good idea because I have been told 'no more crafts'. Lame. Anyhoo, this week we made my favourite craft: A Christmas Reindeer Head. The template is from here, and the result is awesome. I cut out the cardboard and let the kids go to town with some coloured paper, stars and feathers. I am in love with the outcome. Our little reindeer head has since been given a tinsel scarf and some the wall has been decorated with festive words. It's a wonderful little corner.

I've also created Christmas CD's for work. I said I was Christmas-ing it up. I made both an upbeat, fun CD to play whilst the kids are having fun outside, and a sleepy CD for when the kids are napping. Even though it's summer outside it is starting to feel quite Christmasy now. :D

Continuing with the Christmas theme. I put my name in for the Secret Santa at work. I got Angela, the room leader in my room. She's very much a closed door. It's very hard to figure out what she likes, people who have worked with her for 5 years have no idea what to get her. I've been struggling to come up with something, but this Friday I noticed she kept turning off my Christmas music and seemed to enjoy having the kids sitting quietly in the book corner reading books with her, so I decided she liked quietness...so maybe she likes quiet, relaxing baths? We went the Broadway and in Target found the beauty below. I think I won the lottery with this one, we have a budget of $25-30, and this fit into it. The stuff is supposed to be valued at $107, which I may not entirely believe, but I do believe that for $30 it was a steal. I am super chuffed with it. Fingers crossed she likes it. :)

In other news we went apartment hunting this weekend. It was a bit of a failure. The one apartment we really wanted to see had been leased Friday afternoon, and the other apartments were either tiny or had no natural light. We're hoping next weekend will offer better options, and already think it might. :) We were supposed to meet an old friend for a coffee catch up after the apartment viewings, but we'd both developed some seriously bad headaches (walking in the sun with limited water, no bathrooms and no sunscreen is NOT the best idea...I felt like I was going to faint at one point), so we had to cancel and went home and slept most of the afternoon.

We're feeling much better, and now own a small portable tube of sunscreen. :) Time to make some peppermint playdough whilst listening to Christmas music! Love this time of the year.

Christmas Season

It's the 1st of December. Advent is here. I would normally have Christmas decorations up, and Christmas music playing non-stop, and a super warm feeling that Christmas is coming, but I'm still working on fitting those in with Summer. My mind is still a little confused. I love that it's getting warmer here (although, temperature's being in the 30's and it still being spring is a tad worrying!), but I am a HUGE fan of sun filled days, long days, gorgeous bright and vibrant days, days that make me want to get out and do things. It's just, to me, and I think I may go on about this a lot, aren't Christmas days yet.

I've grown up in Europe, Christmas to me is a Winter holiday. Christmas brightens the dark days of Winter. Christmas is filled with gorgeous warm lights, warm shops playing Christmas songs, the warmth of holding a pack of roasted chestnuts, sitting by a fire, hot coffees/teas/hot chocolates, snow. In the darkness of Winter Christmas keeps spirits up. It's magical.

Christmas is also about family and friends being together. Giving and being kind. Happiness and togetherness. At least I still see a lot of that here. Even with my mum, dad, brother, sister and childhood friends all the other side of the world, there is an overwhelming sense of love at Christmas. I love that, and at those times, no matter what the season, it's very hard not to feel like it's Christmas. 

White Wine in the Sun

We don't get the joys of watching Children in Need down here in Oz, but the BBC does put some of the performances up on it's Youtube page. After excitedly watching the Doctor Who preview (eee! can't wait until Christmas for the new episode!) I started browsing my way through the Children in Need videos and came across this. I already love Tim Minchin. His songs are super awesome, I especially love Prejudice and his Lullaby. This one is also amazing, and sad, I almost cried listening to it, but that may be because like him, my family is the other side of the world, but maybe also because of the happy realisation that I have a new family here that will be having white wine in the sun with me this Christmas. :)

A little Christmassy update

Salmon pate.

So Christmas was pretty awesome. We got up around 9ish, had some tea, etc. I was extremely tired and ill feeling as I had managed to get a blocked nose, but whatever. We opened presents pretty early so that we could get working on some final jobs before everyone came for Christmas at 16:00. I got some pretty neat things...I will try take some photos. I am very grateful to have received stuff. :) Very nice of people. So after that we got on with little jobs, like getting ice, moving tables, preparing dips etc. I had a nap because I was tired. We had some prawns, and some scrambled egg on toast with bacon and smoked salmon. Was a pretty nice morning/early afternoon. Then people arrived!!

I am happy to say the salmon pate went down well. :) AND it came out in the moulds, which is awesome. Very happy. We sat around, chatted, drank some yum Champagne cocktails. It was nice. Dinner was super yum. Had a prawn cocktail starter, and then lots of yummy meats and veg for main. The lamb was particularly good!! I then snuck away for a little chat with my family, and returned for dessert: white chocolate mousse with mango, pistachio and raspberries. It was good. :D We also made some Gingerbread men to have with tea and coffee. Yums!!!

Our awesome Gingy's, James made, I iced.

Today we went round to James' grandparents for lunch. There were gifts from the previous day that had not yet ben opened, so we had all that to do after a yum lunch. I got a pretty awesome gift from Matt and Michelle...some "Rabbit with Big Pointy Teeth" slippers. If you don't recognise where they are from you may very well need to educate yourself with the awesomeness of Monty Python!

My new slippers.

Attacking James' leg! 

Evil bunny!!!

The rather funny Certificate of Authenticity.

I'm loving them. For those of you who are not aware of this rabbit, you may want to watch the clip below...or the whole of the Monty Python and the Holy Grail movie. :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

I'm pretty sure I used this photo last year, it's from the Chalet.

Wishing everyone a MERRY CHRISTMAS! Mine has been pretty awesome thus far. Taking a break between main course of dinner and dessert to see if my family can skype, and then back to this not so odd feeling Australian Christmas.

I hope you all have a wonderful day wherever you are! Merry Christmas everyone!!

Christmas Tree

Tree is up!

It's not been feeling a whole lot like Christmas in Australia. It may to Australians, but as someone who is used to long dark nights lit by fires and Christmas lights, the long summer evenings and bright days not lit by fires and lights are somewhat un-christmassy. But this evening it got feeling a bit more like Christmas as we set up the Christmas trees....yes, trees. One proper tree and one for all the Santa ornaments James' family have collected. I don't have a good photo of the Santa tree yet, so you'll have to wait for that awesomeness. :P But I do have the other beautifully decorated tree.

I do love decorating for Christmas. :) I put on my Christmas playlist as we decorated, it was nice. :)

Christmas countdown begins soon!

Drawn by moi! :)

Eee! The countdown to Christmas starts tomorrow! I haven't quite felt like it's Christmas soon due to the sun, lack of going into a town filled with christmas music and decorations and the lovely dark evenings lit up by warm christmas lights or a fire...but that doesn't mean I don't know it's Christmas soon, and it won't stop me excitedly counting down. :D

Christmas at Shilligers

 I LOVE going to Shilligers around Christmas time because they do so many lovely Christmas displays...it's almost like walking through a Winter Wonderland! So before I leave for Australia we thought we would go and visit. I took photos to share...they do not do it justice, but you get an idea! :)

I am so glad we had time to visit, I do love Christmas time. :)

My favourite time of the year

I think it may be time to start listening to Christmas music again. I absolutely love the Christmas season. I love the dark evenings all lit up by Christmas lights. I love the smell of roasted chestnuts in town. I love the warmth and happiness Christmas decorations give off. I love the golden glow of the Christmas tree in the evening. Gosh I love Christmas time. I do hope it's just as magical in the summer time.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you have a lovely, warm and happiness filled day (or for those in different time zones, have had a lovely day!). Some cozy photos of our decorations up here. :)