December dreaming

Well the wrapping paper has been recycled and the endless lists of To Do and Urgent To Do and Last Minute Gifts and Christmas Card Lists (yes, I do still send a few) have been scrunched up for good. 

So what's left? 

Happy memories of family, friends, food and fun.

Slightly expanded waist lines.

The odd box of chocolates and mince pies still adorning the table after dinner.

A candy cane or two melting into the bottom of my handbag - eek!

Enough reflection. Time to go straight to the pictorial highlights: 

Love this one of girls exhausted in oversized chair on one of the final last minute shopping trips.

Snowflake fairy lights twinkling each night.

Decorating with letters.

Writing a few Christmas cards - especially to the older relatives we don't see that often.

Enjoying a decorated tree.

Moving the tree around a bit, just in case there was somewhere better...(there wasn't. It went back to the bay window)

A Christmas table at my parent's home - that always shines with love and care and  screams (in a nice way) welcome! Come celebrate!

Cousins enjoying each other.

Novelty guests. Who sang!

Special food you hadn't cooked before and had prayed hard would turn out alright. (Red velvet chocolate cheesecake) yum.

And then at the next family event..

Competitions to see who could wear the most Christmas hats. Jesse won.

Ma's famous Christmas trifle.

A Cath Kidston spatula for me from my cool travelling niece, straight off the plane from London that morning!

There's lots more, but perhaps you are feeling, as I am, slightly overloaded. Mentally. Physically. Emotionally. (I didn't cry when I unwrapped that spatula. But I could have.)

Hope you get to use these few days between Christmas and New Year to put your feet up, read a book or two and bask in some post-Christmas glow.

It's a little too soon to start planning for the new year. But it doesn't hurt to spend a little time dreaming...