christmas fun

 Here's how our living room looked in the morning. It's a lot of fun fun getting wrapped up in the excitement of it all. I was a lot more chilled out this year, deciding not to dwell on any of the christmas "questions" that were plaguing me last year. Should we "do" Santa or shouldn't we? How do we reconcile the different traditions Steve and I have brought from our own childhoods? Have we got too many presents or not enough? Should I really put pressure on myself to make handmade gifts when clearly there won't be enough time? Why can't I seem to get christmas cards done? (I'm hopeful that one day when the boys are a little less demanding of my time I'll manage to do more :)
Although we were all a bit manic in the run up, christmas itself was lovely- relaxed and cheerful and most importantly, SLOW. Hooray for slow days.

Here are a few photos of Brendan and Tadhg out trying out their new scooters.

And here's one showing what I discovered when going to check on what Brendan was up to after noticing he had been quiet for some time. He had decided to decorate the bannister with ornaments taken from the tree. I was sooo impressed and sat happily at the bottom of the stairs, listening and watching, while he finished the job.

Tadhg still didn't show much interest but Brendan wrapped his own presents for the three of us (with a bit of help) and then made homemade labels.  Oh and a small one for Belle the cat, by which time he was tired of writing so he just drew a cat.

There wasn't a lot of making going on but we did manage a bit of sewing. I made two pairs of christmas stockings- one out of repurposed felted wool and another pair out of an old airline blanket pinched long ago from and Air Canada flight. 

There were no photos of our meal. It was lovely, but not quite as special as the one Steve had cooked and we had shared with Caitlin, Billy and Paddy the weekend before.