Christmas Tour

For the last 2 years, 1 of the blogs I follow has always done a Christmas House Tour, where you go and get welcomed into others homes via their blogs and see how they have decorated for the holidays.

I have decided this year to give you all a tour of my tree. I have so many decorations that have special meaning to me so have decided to share a few with you. A few are old, but most are new to the family in the last couple of years and hopefully will adorn our tree for years to come.

This is the angel on the top of the tree. I am not sure where I got her from but have had her for a long time now. She always gets centre stage on the top of the tree.

This is the oldest decoration I have on the tree. I got it when I lived in Wapakoneta, Ohio in 1985, although I do not actually know who gave it to me, although I know Mum will know, but knowing my luck it will probably be from her and then I will look real stupid!

This is Steve's decoration. He got it from Disney Land when he was there one year, but that was at least 11 or 12 yrs ago! This is the one decoration that he always puts on the tree.

This is the newest decoration we have on the tree. I treated ourselves to this one last year as a reminder of how special 2008 was to us (the year we got married) It is a Hallmark one and I just love the glistening look of it.

This reindeer is from a cute Christmas shop in London. Steve and I brought it whilst there on holiday in 2001. We also got a snowman to go with it, but I couldn't get the camera to take a very good picture of the snowman!

Back in 2001 and for several years after that, the managment of the Theatre dept in Auckland Hospital actually made small token gifts as thank you presents for all the staff. No easy task I can tell you.

These 2 tags are the ones Steve and I got in 2001, the next year they did little terracota pots with christmas cake inside, the pots were decorated with decoupage as well. We had some clever managment. So these remind us both of all the years we worked there.

These baubles are ones I got for each of the boys as they were born. It has their name and year of birth on. They love having their own thing to put on the tree each year.

Back in 2005, Grandma and Grandad were living in Spain. They were there over the Christmas of that year and so they sent us all a little gift for our tree as our presents that year. These gorgeous decorations have hung on our tree each year ever since and will do so for many years to come. The boys both got a stocking shaped one with santa and a snowman on and Steve and I got a Santa and a Snowman shaped one. I love them all.

Last year at the School Holiday Programme in the week before Christmas Ben made me this present. It is a very special present and it made me cry when I received it!

It has a very cute little verse on it.

If you have trouble reading this then you can check out my post on it from last year when I first received the gift.

So that ends the tour of my tree for this year although there is one more thing to show you...and that is the treee itself.

Merry Christmas to you all

Christmas House Tour

Welcome, come in, so nice to see you.....

Now before we start, I have to apologize for the mess, I know the walls need painting, the back yard needs landscaping and the carpet is not the greatest, but this house is a work in progress.

This is our first Christmas in this house, so am still finding my feet as to where to place the decorations.

I have put out a few items to get us in the mood, but it has also given me the chance to get an idea as to what we need to aim to buy in future years.....more fairy lights, garland for the stairs, other little ornaments etc

We have our tree up, I don't actually have a colour theme for it, although red and gold seem to be the favorite, but I do have a few special decorations on there. I finished decorating it late at night, so the boys hadn't seen it with lights on. I was lucky the morning after to be able to get downstairs before them and switch the lights on.........Ben thought it was so special to come down the stairs and find the tree all a glow, it was lovely to see his reaction.

When you come to the front door I have my lovely santa signs showing you the way. They just give a little flavour to the front of the house. We are going to our caravan for Christmas and I will be taking these with us to decorate outside the caravan.

Of course from last year I have my reindeer and santa door hangers that the boys love to take down for me daily!

The boys each have an advent calendar that was given to them by Grandma, unfortunately I didn't get round to filling them this year, but luckily for me they do not understand or realise what should be in there, so they are just interested in knowing which one belongs to whom!

The kitchen doesn't even miss out, as I have special Christmas magnets to place on the fridge. I would love to get a Christmas Dinner Set to use through out December, I think this would be a lovely holiday starting tradition to get in to. One day I will have to watch the January Sales to see what I can find, unfortunately I have not found anything that I like, and seeing as I would like a setting for 8, then I have to make sure I like it!

I got these lovely decoupaged decorations from someone I use to work with in Auckland. This is the first year I have put them out and I think I have found the right spot for them on the bookcase, shows them off really well.

I love my flying santa over the door, although I had a few problems finding a home for this as all the door frames faced the wrong way against the wall to fit him on, but he looks great in the living room above the tv area.

For this year at least, until we maybe knock it out, we have a fireplace, so I had the pleasure of hanging the stockings in the fireplace. As it is summer here then there is no fire risk, but it was just so cool hanging the stockings up.

Now I decided to go and do something special for the boys and us this year, and so I put fairy lights in our bedrooms, sadly the pictures didn't come out too well, but it gives you the general idea. The boys love going to sleep at night with just the lights on and our room is so cosy and romantic with our fairy lights. We switch them off at night, but I think they may stay up for a little longer than Christmas.

Well that is us for this year, give you a little touch of what we have around us. So nice of you to stop by. I have some cold juice in the fridge if you need a glass as it is getting quite warm here now and if you are still here at dinnertime then you may be lucky enough to get a sausage off the BBQ or even some steak and salad.

Oh, yea, just one more little thing.......back in January I set myself a little challenge, I wanted to post 366 post for the year, it didn't have to be one a day, as I knew I wouldn't manage that, but I would aim for 366.

Well, this post is my 366th of the year.

On Thursday I realised that my next post was the winning one and so I decided to wait until you could all join me in my little celebration, so pull up a seat, get a cold juice and lets see if we can't get this party rolling.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Christmas Tour

For the last 2 years Boo Mama has done a Christmas House Tour.

How it works is that you take pictures of your decorations in your house, put up a post about them, maybe even share a special recipe along the way, because after all, as she says, you are inviting people over to view your house.
Then on the day, Dec 15 this year, you pop on over to BooMama, place a link to your tour and sit back and look at all the other links and see how others have decorated their home.

It doesn't have to be extravegant, plain and simple is fine. If you have a cute little scene you want to show off then take a picture. If you have a special wall hanging, then take a picture, anything you want to show.

Me, well I had better start thinking about where I actually want to put the decorations seeing as this is our first year in this house!

Tahiti - Snorkelling

We booked ourselves on an all day picnic and snorkelling tour on one of the days.
This involved getting picked up from the resort by boat, taken out to a fish feeding area, snorkelling and watching the fish and 5 foot long black fin tip sharks. The water is as clear as you see in the pictures, I have seen swimming pools murkier than this before!
We then got taken to feed some sting rays and finished up spending the afternoon on a quiet island, soaking in the sun, snorkelling some more and having a BBQ. It was a great day out.

Below are oddles of pictures showing you everything we got up too.....

This magnificant ship was moored in one of the bays. You stay on it and travel round all the islands.

Start of the fish as they began getting fed.

Steve being braver than me, and actually getting in the water, which was so warm, to watch the fish.

They secured a rope from the boat, and you stayed on one side of the rope and the fish and sharks were fed on the other side.

Just a small picture of one of the creatures we got to see up close and personal.

Yes, I finally got in the water to watch the amazing view. It is so many years since I had done any snorkelling, it took a while to get your breathing right and to actually enjoy it. But it was like looking through clear glass at them.

Had to put this shot in just to show you the pure colour of the water. You can see how far out from land we were and it was just awesome.

The boat driver and leader of the tour is in the water surrounded by sting ray. Unfortunately I was never brave enough to get in the water with the rays, but Steve said they were all slimey.

Christmas House Tour

Now don't forget that the Christmas house tour is on again. So go on over to Boomama's place and see what she has been up to and then take a tour of all her friend's houses and see what they have been doing with their decorations.

Just don't forget to go and see my tour as well.

Merry Christmas to you all

Christmas House Tour

Welcome to my house, please wipe your feet on the door mat but you don't have to worry about taking your shoes off.

Sorry about the heat, but it is summer after all down here in New Zealand. And before you ask, yes it does take some getting use to having Christmas in the sun.

There are no dark nights with bright lights shinning, yes we have bright lights but only after 9pm when night comes in. So very difficult to take 2 little guys out to view the lights because they are a sleep by 7.30pm and even if we kept them up they would be a sleep in the car within 5 minutes of driving down the road, so something I will save for 1 year when they are older.

There is no sitting cosy in the living room having the family all together around the open fire. The only open fire you would get here would be the campfire on the beach whilst on your summer holidays camping, although due to the dryness of the land even that would probably be banned!

We have lots of chocolates and cookies, but no warming hot chocolate and fluffy marshmallows to go with it, too hot and humid, give me a cold one from the chilly or fridge, preferably with ice.

But we do do Christmas, just the same as everyone else. The shops have been full of the stuff since August and we have already had the 'Pre Christmas Sales!'

So please forgive the meagre amount of decorations around my house this year. As you know we have just moved into this house, it is a rental and so a lot of our stuff is still in boxes as we decided we didn't need it out just yet, and also the fact we will look to purchase our own place next year then I can't be bothered to unpack stuff I don't really need just to repack it 6 months later.

Anyway, I have made some effort. Unfortunately we don't have a nice front door, a deck with ranch sliders is what we have, so no wreath hanging there, but I do have a Santa welcoming you as you come up the steps. He did have a complete tree but my 2 snapped it, also you can see the angel at his feet in the plate pot, she was on her stick (on ground behind!) but again these 2 little munchkins I have living in this house dimolished her within 1 day of her being there!

This year Grandma got all 4 grandsons a lovely advent calendar, it is a decorative thing with draws for each of the days, you then fill the draw with the little surprise/gift. As my 2 don't seem to like chocolate then theirs are filled with stickers and balloons.

I have my reindeer and santa door hangings, although again my 2 love playing with these and guaranteed everyday I am picking them up off the floor somewhere in the house and hanging them back where they are currently staying.

Next we move into the living room where the tree is. Most people in New Zealand swear by a real tree, I did that 2 years ago and am happy with my fake one thank you very much. Again I have only gone with the basics this year, but it still has the effect. No presents under there yet. Some may say this is because Santa hasn't delivered yet, others will tell you it is because if any did appear under there then I know who would open them within 10 minutes?? I think they are called Ben and Alex!

Last of all for this quick little tour, we have my 2 cute stockings hanging on the doors. No Fireplace in this house, so as close to the tree as possible is fine with me.

I thank you for coming to see our little abode at this wonderful time of year, especially as we do things slightly different here with the sun and the sea and the surf.

Although I am impressed that I had the tree up so early this year, it has been there at least 2 weeks. I have so many plans for next year, things I would like to buy over the next few years to start having some Christmas traditions of our own as a family, or more things I will do each year and the boys will remember that they always had it!

So Merry Christmas to you and yours. May you have wonderful glorious times with your families and friends and may 2008 bring you some of your hopes and wishes.

To go and find out more about the tours of other peoples house at this joyous time then slip on over to here and enjoy the sights of Christmas.

Don't forget to leave a comment so I can skip over to your house to have a wee look.

Blogger House Tours for Christmas

Boomama once held a "Blogger House Tour' You posted a few pictures of your abode and then linked into her site and everyone got to take a tour of your house.

Well she has decided to do the same again only this time it is of course Christmas.

So stick around and check her out after December 17 (USA time), and take a tour of some of the houses that get posted, although just be warned, there was over 200 tours posted on the last one and I still haven't finished touring them all, so be prepared to spend a day on the computer checking out everyones decorations.