It’s Christmas time…

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christmas, Christmas @mybeachretreat, Christmas cards, Christmas carols, Christmas decorations, Christmas trees, daughters, edible gifts, family, feeling calm, handmade gifts, holidays, O Holy Night, parents, remembering Christmas, siblings, special gifts

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Don’t you just love home made pressies, I know I do.

They come wrapped with love, usually imperfect but so beautiful and you know that the gift giver is really giving you ‘their gift’

Gearing up for Christmas 2015, I  decided to spend some time making edible gifts for my colleagues at work and those at Bill’s work – they went down a treat but mostly they gave us reason to smile, for nobody really knows besides the two of us what it has taken to move our whole life down here and be finally blessed with both of us working locally, so we wanted to give back this year to say

‘Thanks, for having us in your lives, we couldn’t be happier’

Christmas time from my childhood was spent deep in tradition. We went to Church on the day early morning then came home and cooked a traditional Christmas dinner, Dad’s famous french onion soup for entree, Mums roast with gravy for lunch and desert was always Christmas pudding with the eight of us gathered around a beautifully laden table with Mum’s best plates and cutlery and polished silver which only came out once a year.

I recall each Christmas Eve spending my days on the lounge room floor as Mum handed me her ‘silver candlesticks, teapot and other beautiful ‘glass wares’ which were her pride and joy to clean and polish for the big day. That evening we always celebrated with Mum’s side of the family, where my aunts and uncles would stream in for a festive evening of singing Christmas carols and present giving.  Then we would retire to bed only to get up early the next day for more present unwrapping. It was a highlight each year which I absolutely loved.

Nowadays our Christmas is a little less hectic with our children grown up we decided a few years ago to do Kris Kringle, so we each get a present but it doesn’t send us broke at this time of the year.  I have vowed to have every Christmas at home from here on.  My parents did that and I want to continue their tradition of Christmas in my home.

This week, we all gathered together as some had other commitments for Christmas Day and I received a most beautiful gift from my daughter. It was handmade with hours of love and attention, wit and humour, honouring her creative talents which I adore.

When she was around 15 she decided to become a vegetarian and from that moment has taught herself many wonderful skills of cooking a skill I  have admired for the past 10 years.

This week, my daughter made me her very own recipe book with all of those recipes I have tasted & loved over the years, silently wishing I had the knowledge and creativity to just put together as simply and seemingly so easily as she always does. Accompanied with her homemade aromatic spices of Dukkah and Lavender salt which will come in very handy with my new years commitment (more on that next post)

I have heard it said many times that our children teach us many things.  This I have found to be true.

My daughter has taught me strength, resilience and how to follow your true ‘North Star’ – she is a light and inspiration to me.  Thankyou Melly from the bottom of my heart for your most precious gift xx

 What I love about Christmas…

I love beautiful paper cards and decorations you see only at Christmas time

I love being involved in buying presents for a stranger who’s face you will never see unwrapping your gift but know in your heart there will be smiles

I love beautifully decorated Christmas trees

I love that my aunties still send me Christmas cards in the mail

I love big large Christmas trees

which dominate

a whole room

And I really love Christmas carols, particularly the ones I used to sing out loud every Christmas Eve with my Mum, Dad brothers and sisters when there was still 8 of us, just like this one which moves me like no other…here is Perry Como singing ‘O Holy night’ my favourite carol of all…and it always takes me back to that little girl listening to it with her Dad each Christmas Eve…and trumpeting it out with the top of my voice…

I am feeling different this Christmas,

I am feeling calm.

The frantic rush has gone from our lives. I used to still be at a job stressed to the rafters by this stage of the year, adrenalin running high on chocolate and lots of sugar, so tired that the thought of wrapping Christmas pressies filled me with angst as I just didnt have enough time to do it all.

This year although has still had its challenges, I am feeling much different.  For the first time in many years, I am in holiday mode already on the 23rd December, heading to a beautiful day out with special friends at the beach tomorrow, then a peaceful Christmas lunch just around the corner with no worrying about driving in city traffic, still up until midnight wrapping gifts and getting organised…

Now that’s a gift our new life has bought us

a gift that I treasure…

So, from mybeachretreat to your home, I wish you tranquility this Christmas.

Take the time to breathe, put your feet up,

and relax with loved ones…

Merry Christmas!!

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No, I am definately not superwoman…

Tags

Aldi, christmas, Christmas decorations, Hocking Stuart, shopping list, Supermarket

This week I had a good old laugh at myself.  Heading off Christmas eve to tackle the supermarkets I was writing my list of last minute things I needed to get to ensure my first Christmas lunch at my beach retreat was a success when my husband, who has done the supermarket shopping for the last 15 years, said to me ‘I put my list on my phone in the notes section‘ – me being a bit technologically challenged could not be bothered to do that and chose to ignore his suggestion while grabbing the nearest pen and the back of an envelope to begin my handwritten list; eggs, honey and mustard for glaze and fruit for pavlova and lots of little things we had forgotten at the last minute.

So off I went to park in Aldi Supermarket and began to make my way to grab a trolley forgetting that I needed the ‘trolley dime’ or a dollar coin to unlock the trolley.  As I struggled to locate a one or two dollar coin somewhere on me I did manage to find one at the bottom of my bag, and as I slid the coin into the slot I thought, goodness me, you really do need to plan a visit to the supermarket!

As I made my way inside along with my empty trolley and began to look at the shelves, my eyes went looking at everything which was not on my list. Whilst being distracted from all the goodies on the shelves (It’s interesting that the biscuits, sweets and other items not so good for you are located directly as you walk in the door), my phone rang which is rather rare, so I stopped to answer it in case it was my husband or one of the kids.

The caller was our property manager from Hocking Stuart who takes great care of our rental property in Melbourne.  He and I  have had a good year corresponding and liaising over a number of issues to get a bit of work done on our Melbourne property.  He was ringing to wish me and my husband a happy Christmas which I thought was lovely extra service on top of his Christmas card I had opened yesterday.  I was rather surprised at the added customer service Hocking Stuart provided their landlords and made a mental note to use them again given the opportunity.  I thanked him for his work this year and hung up only to find while I was talking to him, my mind had wandered and I had put down my shopping list somewhere between discussing repairs and new year resolutions and couldn’t for the life of me find it – ‘That’s just great” I thought, I am so bad at this supermarket caper, I’m hardly in the door and I can’t even hang on to the damn list!

At this point  I was berating myself and walking around the aisles trying to recall what was on that list – I was contemplating ringing my husband to mention that I had lost this great shopping list which worked better for me and perhaps he could remember what I had put on it, but thought better of it so spent another ten minutes retracing my steps trying to remember where I had stopped , perhaps the beach towels I had picked up or maybe I left it amongst the Christmas decorations I was admiring…

It was while I was contemplating on what to do next that I noticed a woman who’s trolley was overflowing with her families Christmas items, hams, salads, chips, a pavlova case, brandy snaps – everything under the sun you could want for a fantastic day – I was in total awe at the size of her overflowing trolley and said to her – Wow, how did you manage all of that by yourself?  To which she replied, this is the easy bit the shopping, tomorrow will be the hard bit.  As she and I went through the checkout the same time, I watched her pack everything into her car,  return her trolley without a hitch all awhile seemingly totally in control, I thought to myself, I’d better ring my husband as I didn’t have a clue what I had to get at the next supermarket and if I went home without it I wouldn’t be very popular.

So after cringing through my phone call as I sat in the Aldi car park I thought to myself, well, I can travel to a high stressed job 5 hours per day, create a Self-Managed Super Fund and buy property but I can’t get myself around a supermarket just proves to me that we are not all made of the same superwoman stuff, some of us are just better at different superwoman things.

Post script:  You will be pleased to know that I fed 10 people for Christmas dinner and that my pavlova got eaten and some even went back for seconds, I think I will try it again next year, perhaps with a cheesecake for desert this time…

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