In the mail last week I received this tiny little teacup. It came from America from our youngest daughter. I had to laugh for it is the same pattern as the one from Harrods. It is meant to go on our Christmas Tree.
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| Such a Tiny Thing and Royal Albert at that. |
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As I seem to have stopped decorating a tree I decided to add stuffing to the cup and turn it in to a needle and pin holder with the saucer for my thimble, but that will have to wait till at least next year.
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| Comparison of the large and small. |
We now spend Christmas Day with the eldest son and family, I decided three years ago that my traditional Christmas, with everyone turning up at this house, and sitting down to a dinner that was anywhere between 17 - 25 was all well and good, but it didn't give the two daughter-in-laws, with their own children a chance at setting up a tradition for the children. The eldest son has 5 and No. 2 son has 3.
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| Christmas of old. I love snowmen. |
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| Christmas of old, American country |
We had a special breakfast of a fruit platter, yoghurt and muffins,
and this was followed by a Roast with all the trimmings and plum pudding
with real money inside, an English tradition from my childhood. Once I
tried, on a very hot year, a Tapa dinner. Everyone sat around our air
conditioned lounge while I was basically the waitress lol. I had planned
it for weeks and had so many little snacks that kept coming for at
least 2 hours, but the work involved in that was extraordinary, but lots
of fun and many ooohs and aaaahs.
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| Christmas with baby cricket |
Mind you I haven't quite got out of cooking yet as every year so far since I changed over, has
been with the eldest, who only lives 10 mins away so I am now taking
prepared meals to help, and extra bits and pieces while the eldest
daughter-in-law has fun setting up how she likes it all. I still make
the pudding with money in it lol.
Now I can't be bothered setting up a tree, or any trimmings,
its so much work to pull it all down, without any children to help. As
for this year I will be lucky to have a reasonable clean house for when
the girls come home for a week. The youngest and her husband flying in
from America on business.
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| Christmas of Old. |
This year, for the first time our youngest son will not be coming home. His birthday is the 27th. Dec. and has had a party every year down by the creek. The only child to have accomplished his birthday at home since he was born in 1979. When he was younger I insisted that he had a separate present and a party, as unfortunately his birth date is so close to Christmas Day. Mind you he was supposed to be born on the 12th. so it threw that year out also. He has a new job this time, so is unable to get enough time to drive up from Sydney and back again. He will spend Christmas with No.2 son, who in turn will pack up his family and spend 2 weeks here. Such a shame it would have been the first time all 5 children would have been home together, for many years.
So as we get older our Christmas's are changing. I can see the future being one year in Sydney and the next in Coffs Harbour. This gives the married children a year of their own, and maybe every 2nd year a big family get together at home.
What are your plans?
Oh wow - you're really the first one I remember writing about giving her children's families the chance to have their own Christmas/holiday traditions. I think that's very considerate. It's something we struggled with this year for Sinterklaas (Santa Claus, but the one that has His birthday on December 6th - in our country tradition is that he comes in the night of the 5th, bringing presents to the children that put their shoes near the chimney). My mother always enjoyed that enormously, and we kept celebrating it until very recently, but the grandchildren now are old enough to understand and I wanted my son to have the tradition like I've always known it... Luckily we found a good solution!
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