And Now, What You’ve All Been Waiting For… Christmas 2012

Okay, so apologies for the delay in getting the Christmas 2012 blog going.  With work being busy, and Noel and I having a gazillion things to do lately, one or the other of us has been dragging our feet at one time or another.

All the Christmas decorations are up that will be up for this year.  We have quite a collection of Christmas decorations and things, and every year we miss a few here or there.  This year, we’re missing our Santa with a snowglobe (with a list of who’s naughty and who’s nice), our Christmas train for around the tree, and other little bits and pieces.

Noel and I have built up our Christmas collection over the years.  In our front living room, we have a traditional Christmas tree (pre-lit) with red and gold ornaments.  We skip the garland or tinsel because we have two rather rambunctious cats who would get the tree on the ground in about three minutes flat by tugging on the stuff til the tree couldn’t take it any longer.

Alas, I digress.

We also have a large light-up reindeer that sits in the window next to the tree.  It has Christmas lights through its antlers to make it look like it’s a bit clumsy.  It reminded Noel of Jenah so, of course, he had to have it.

The piano has a Christmas carol book open on it (this year: “Joy to the World”) and a small Christmas tree with white lights.  This year, Noel has added a menorah for Hanukkah, sitting on our relatively new hall table (right beside the front door).

Outside, we aren’t as garish as some of those houses with 9 gazillion lights, but we decorate what I think is tastefully.  Noel (who is less afraid of heights than me) climbs the ladder every year to put them up and take them down, and nice enough to put up with what he calls my OCD to make sure the lights are all on solid and not different random patterns (it irks me!).

This year, Noel brought out one of his super-duper cameras and took a picture of our house as the sun was almost fully set.

The funniest thing is that, this year, we seem to be the only house on our block to have such a display up, so people slow down and admire it pretty much all evening, which is lovely.  Glad that we can bring at least a little cheer to other people in what’s been a very topsy-turvy last two Christmases for Christchurch and the Canterbury region.

You might recall I said “our front living room” before.  That’s right.  We have two living rooms.  It’s rather typical in newer New Zealand houses.  The front living room is what I’d like to think is similar to where visitors were first received in old English homes.

The back living room is connected to our kitchen, with a breakfast bar and dining room, in an open plan.  We place quite a few Christmas knick-knacks around the place in that area.  The main Christmas feature, though, is our white Christmas tree.

Jacqui’s mother Ann bought this tree for under $5NZ at Farmer’s, where she works, a few years back.  It’s been an extremely durable tree and been well worth the investment.

This year, Noel and I bought new lights for it.  The first lot of lights were strings of 25 LED lights (blue) that had sparkly tinsel on them.  We would still be using them if they hadn’t been so short!  So we raided TradeMe and found 3 10-meter, 100 LED light strings; the above is the result.  I think it looks stunning.

While I realise all my friends and family are not Christian, and they know I respect them for whatever or whomever they believe (or don’t believe) in, Christmas is a very special time for me.  There is something in the story of a father who loves those under his care so much that he sends his own son to be sacrificed to save those under his care.  For me, though, I have very good memories of Christmas (for the most part), of fun with friends and family, and that’s why Christmas is so very special to me.

Happy holidays!