CHRISTMAS DAY 2019

We had been warned that we needed to be up early and around at Sarah's by 6am in the morning if we wanted to see the kids open their Santa presents....
Chloe woke us nice and early and we made the deadline... In fact we arrived before Max had even woken and in the end, they had to wake him so that we could open a few presents before we headed into Church...

Even Penny got into the Spirit of Christmas and wore a Christmas Hat...

One very happy little boy....

Wonder what Santa bought for me?????

She must have been good cause Santa bought her a present...

What more presents in your sack????

Oh Santa came to Dan also....

 The children were pretty excited to open their presents... Once we had opened their Santa presents, Sarah fed them, whilst I started getting the Turkey ready to pop in the oven.  It was going to take something like 3 hours to cook, so we figured that unless we put it in the oven to cook whilst we were at church, lunch would not be ready until mid afternoon.

Normally we would go to the Christmas Service at Citipointe but this year, Chloe and Dan wanted us all to go to church with them.  Their church is no where near as big as Citipointe but it is a lot more intimate with people going out of their way to catch up and say hi to you...

The service was lovely and we did chat for a little while after the service, but then we headed home as the children were keen to open gifts and we really needed to make sure that the vegetables joined the turkey in the oven before we opened the gifts....

One all of the above had been taken care of it was time to open the presents....

 The children were so patient waiting for us all to get our jobs done...   They were on the lounge waiting.... Santa hats on and all.....

Even Penny got to wear a Santa hat

Dan and Chloe... she wore her Christmas Shirt from Santa from this morning,,,,

Sarah and Colin all ready to receive gifts.

 As usual Steve got the honours of being Father Christmas and handing out all the gifts...

Father Christmas

 Max and Willow were the first to score... How could they not,  they had been sitting there very patiently waiting for all the adults to come...

Just ripping the paper apart...

Present for Uncle Dan and Aunty Chloe -  pretty happy with this one...

Can't wipe the grin from his face...

 One little girl was very happy to receive her first present also....

Check out the smile -  this was on her list....

 Chloe and Dan were keen to give me my present....

Thrilled to receive some new silver Frankie 4 Sandals...

 The excitement continues as Max gets another gift... this time from his other grandparents..

Dan got some smellies.....

 Even Penny scored gifts....

 Sarah scores a present... I wonder what it could be????

 She is spoilt by her sister and brother in law...

 Meanwhile whilst some of the adults are opening their presents, Max was keen to get his shark mobile moving on the floor....

 Willow then scores from her other grandparents... This is all so exciting....

She scores some pretty impressive craft gear....

 A gift for Chloe.....

 Colin gets very spoilt with his gift from Chloe and Dan....

Steve scores tools that he has been looking for....

 And I get very spoilt with perfume.. Not one lot but double lots of two different ones...
My very favourite Marc Jacobs perfume "Dot" has been discontinued so I was very spoilt by my wonderful husband whom had to scout down some overseas...

Love this stuff

But these are my very favourite...

 Steve has been busy making gifts for our kids this year with his own hands, so he wanted them to open them at the same time...

All opening their gifts together....

They had no idea

 The girls loved them.... I am not so sure about the boys... Still,  both the girls have been wanting to display real plants in their home, so were very much appreciative of the hard work their dad had put into making these for them..

Both the children scored presents from Moppy and Poppy...

 Willow loved her fairy house....

Very Happy with her Fairy House and Garden... A winner here.....

  Steve and Max scored a bug house each....

I got a bug house Poppy says Max....

 Penny scored again also..

 And then Dan got a big one.....
He'd been trying to guess what he was going to get for weeks..

Max was very good at being helpful and helping Dan rip the paper..

Pretty impressed with his new toolbox...

It was pretty hard to wipe the smile of his face..................

 Dan and Chloe had been pretty excited about the present they had bought Steve this year, and they were super keen to give it to him.  In fact they couldn't wait a moment longer....

Dan and Chloe giving Steve his gift....  they were very excited.

Having trouble believing what he is seeing...

Someone is extremely excited...

Having a play with his new toy.

  Never in his wildest dreams could he guess what this present was going to be.  I think the look on his face says it all.  Someone is pretty pleased with this Christmas present....

Chloe also had a massive surprise for Dan for Christmas also.  She had got her Dad to order his Christmas present and then had been sneakily depositing money in our account so that Dan wouldn't trig to what he was getting for Christmas as he really wanted one of these, but Chloe kept putting him off telling him it was too expensive whilst they were house hunting...

What can this be...

What a present within a present... Sneaky

Dude are you for real.....

I would say another happy chappy

He's pretty impressed....

It has been a great Christmas so far with everyone being surprised this year... Love Christmas when it is like this...  In fact I love Christmas full stop.  In all honesty the last at least 10 Christmases have been amazing,  all very different but we have had some amazing experiences and gifts, but the most important thing is that we have spent it with those we love in many different locations around the Australia and the World...

Time for a present or two for Willow and Max...

Wow Max what have you got there.....  Spiderman Lego...

 Chloe scores well again also with a set of WiFi iPhone ear phones....

 Another gift for Sarah....

Oh some bath luxury

 The presents kept coming for Penny also...

 I think Christmas is even a little more magical when kids are involved...

 Willow scored a LOL Mug.. She was very happy with that..

 Time for my gift to Steve...

 I was pretty spoilt this Christmas by Steve and he still had another surprise for me....

What another present????

Very very spoilt this year...

My Christmas Stash

 Willow got a good stash of gifts for Christmas also..

 We still had one more surprise for the Children from their parents.  They got us to form a congo line and we headed out to the back yard.
To say the kids were besides themselves would be an understatement.....
They could hardly believe their eyes.

Mummy joins in with the fun too..

Look how high he can jump

Willow is reaching for the sky

 It was so good to stand back and then photograph their enthusiasm and excitement as they jumped away on their Christmas present...

It took us well over two hours to get through all the presents.  The kids continued jumping whilst the girls came inside to serve out dinner.  Fortunately dinner was cooking whilst we opened our presents otherwise I am not sure what time we would have ended up sitting down to eat...

By lunch time Max was getting quite irritable.  He was up early, had been hyped up all morning, and wasn't overly keen to come to lunch.... too many toys to play with...
When we got him to the table, he didn't want to sit where he was to sit... they he didn't want to wear his cracker hat.  In the end Steve was able to distract him but we knew he needed a rest after lunch..

The boys carving the turkey and ham...

 Time to sit down and eat... Max is not a happy traveler...

 Much happier now that he can sit next to Moppy.  He didn't want to sit at the end of the table with Willow, so Poppy traded places with him.  

 Another Christmas Lunch done and dusted...
After lunch Max was put down for a sleep, Willow was able to sit in the lounge with us and quietly read, and Sarah and Colin also had a rest.... Steve was busy playing with his new projector whilst Dan and Chloe played with Dan's new computer.

Our good friends Ian and Kathy were home alone for Christmas this year, so they ended up joining us mid afternoon for some nibbles and our traditional game of Pakkeleg. 

We had decided that we would do this back at Brett and Hanna's on their back deck and then have grazing platters for Christmas Dinner as we had a big lunch and wouldn't want a huge dinner again at nigh. 

By the time everyone had woken from their sleeps, it was after 4.30pm by the time we left to go back to the Moxey's.  Chloe, Kathy and I prepared the platters for dinner whilst we waited for Sarah, Colin and the kids to arrive.  Sarah wanted to bath them first and get them ready for bed before coming over.

Pakkeleg is a traditional Christmas game played in Denmark and was introduced to us in 2015 when Maria and her sisters joined us in  Australia for an Aussie Christmas. Since then we have played it each Christmas.  It kind of connects us to our Danish family living on the other side of the world. 

We finished getting dinner ready and organised the deck so that everyone could sit outside ad then chatted whilst we waited for Sarah, Colin and the children to arrive...

Presents all on the coffee table ready to start...

 Max was hilarious.  He probably didn't quite understand the game, but would get terribly disappointed if he didn't throw a six, but then get equally excited whenever someone else got a six.  He also wanted to pick everyone's present out for them...  He had us in stitches all night..

Max is not a happy camper as he didn't throw a six again...

He gets over it pretty quickly though.

 Max entertained us all night..

 Willow and Dan were very good at throwing a six and almost threw one each row.  This didn't help more Max as he saw Willow constantly getting to pick a present.  He would get really excited when she threw the six and equally upset when he missed out. 

She gets to pick another gift...

Kathy scores this time...

 Once all the presents are taken off the table, the game continues but there is a new twist...  This time, if you throw a six you may steal someone else's present or if you throw a three, everyone must then past one of their presents on to the next person on their left.  A timer is set, and when that timer goes off, the game ends and what ever presents are left in your hand when the timer goes off are yours to open and keep.

Well Max didn't like this new part of the game either.  He was happy to steal from others when he threw his six, but certainly didn't want anyone else stealing his presents.  Also he didn't want to pass on a present when someone threw a three either, even though he was being handed one.  He really was quite hilarious.  Still these sorts of things are all good learning curves in sharing, and dealing with uncomfortable situations and there were many of these for Max this evening... 

Willow was always keen to check everyone's dice.

 This is the first year the children have played the game with us....

Not another six...

 Colin had a knack for throwing a six if he put the cup over the back of his hand.  I think for three rounds in a row, he scored a six... 

Super excited he got a six

We get to open our presents... the game is over..

Deodorant.... Yah

It took us a couple of hours to play Pakkeleg this year, so in the end Sarah and Colin decided not to stay for nibbles but rather take the kids home so that they could put them to bed as they have had a few big days and were pretty tired...
The rest of us enjoyed another nice evening out on the deck having our nibbles...

Enjoying our dinner whilst also enjoying  the lovely view overlooking Brissie...

Beautiful views over the city...

 The Moxey's have a pool table on their back deck, so after dinner the boys and Chloe played pool whilst Kathy and I watched them and had a good chat. 

 It was a rather lovely way to end a very special Christmas day..
Can't believe another Christmas Day has come and gone but what a very special Christmas it has been.  Memory making that is for sure...