Gingerbread

This year's gingerbread houses

It's almost Christmas!

Abby's First Christmas Tree

 Our new decorations - Andrew's, Abby's lightbulb, and mine

 One of our decorations from Murano

 Abby putting her decoration on the tree

 Andrew putting his on

Andrew thinks it's not a Christmas tree without the Defiant and Ewoks.

The Gingerbread Houses

A Christmas surprise for our neighbours, and for my best friend and her family (who conveniently live around the corner from our new place!) I did the baking, which may have been the easy part. Andrew did the construction and decoration. And he delivered them, early Christmas morning.

Christmas

 First tree in our own home. It's a bit travel, a bit geek and a lot US!

 Gingerbread houses. I baked and Andrew constructed.

Miss Tayah's first smocked outfit.

FIL's present 'wrapped'

 Cutie pie Clara (my cousin's child)

 Ollibollen!

All of us!

Christmas Dress

I had to make myself a Christmas dress this year. I bought the fabric last year - it has Christmas trees in 16 different colours/patterns, plus random little robin redbreasts, which are so sweet.

The pattern is a vintage Butterick 2573, and is described as a 'dirndl frock'. I only made two changes - I increased the length of the zip, to make it easier to get into and out of, and I lined the skirt to make it non-see-through! To make it easier to insert the zip, I had my mother-in-law do it for me!

This was really nice to wear all day, though the sleeves don't allow as much movement as I'd like. I'm thinking of making this again, possibly without sleeves as I really liked the way it looked before I added them too. I love that it has pockets!

A very special Christmas

I love Christmas. I have since I was a kid, which is possibly strange in a girl who was raised without religion and is now pagan, but nevertheless, love it I do. It's getting harder to maintain my enthusiasm and enjoyment as I get older, both because it sneaks up on me, and because my immediate family no longer share my love of Christmas (Andrew's younger sisters and my younger brother's girlfriend are great though) I've been working very hard this year to be enthusiastic, but it's turned out a good day.
We went to Vision Australia's Carols by Candlelight last night, which I adore. I can't think of a better expression of Christmas spirit than all those people joined in song, with money going towards a charity.
Today was lovely. My family celebrations were severely contracted with the loss of my grandparents and all the Canberra people staying there, but it was nice anyway. Andrew's family was all the wonderful madness it usually is, with the added joy of a new baby (I finally got a cuddle, so I made it a nice long one).

But best of all was the very first present I got this morning...
An engagement ring from my beloved! I'm so happy! (Channelling Marion of Bagelle from Robin Hood: Men In Tights)