CHRISTMAS EVE 2021....

It's wonderful to all be together for Christmas Eve again.  It's a Latham Christmas this year so our traditional Prawns on the Lawn together is being held on Dan and Chloe's Deck this year as they are hosting the Latham Christmas for the first time at their place....

Usually Sarah and the children make and ice a gingerbread house with their friends the Moxey's for Christmas but this year they ran out of time because they spent the first two weeks of December holidaying up in Cairns.

Very proud of our attempts at icing the Gingerbread House..

Sarah and I found a gingerbread house in Aldi, so it was the children's and my job to ice and decorate it before Christmas.  We almost ran out of time also and ended up doing it the afternoon of Christmas Eve...

They were super happy with the finished house and it formed the centre piece of our table decorations for Christmas.  Max was also pretty keen to sample it too as he LOVES gingerbread.. 

Completed gingerbread house...

Whilst the children and I decorated the gingerbread house, Steve and the girls took both Penny and Mia for a walk.  Penny is not really good around other dogs at all and Chloe is working at getting Penny and Mia friendly with each other as she really wanted Penny to be able to spend Christmas with us as well.  Penny has always been a part of our Christmas so to leave her home alone was a little upsetting for Chloe.  Colin and Sarah understand it is what it is....  

I personally think they left the run a little to late for this Christmas and whilst they were fine while they were out walking it was a different story when they were at home...

Still it is a goal to continue to work on because as it stands at the moment, Chloe is unable to babysit Penny for Sarah whilst she doesn't like other dogs. 

The girls out walking the dogs together

 

The dogs did get to spend Christmas Eve together but had to be separated to keep the peace..

One of our other Christmas traditions is that the children get one Christmas present each on Christmas Eve and that present contains a new pair of Christmas PJs to wear to bed, so just before Bath time they were both presented with their present, and this year both sets of PJs were winners, and Willow loved the dogs on her PJs and Max was ecstatic to get PJ's with gingerbread men on his... His "Very Favourite" as he liked to inform me..

Wearing their new Christmas PJs

Christmas Eve photos taken with their Moppy... Just love these chickens to bits...

Christmas Eve is a relatively chilled out affair at our place.  Our "Prawns on the Lawn" tradition started way back when Pete and Chloe joined us in Melbourne for Christmas back in 2010.  We were all staying in the caravan and had only arrived in Melbourne a day or so earlier and then had to try and cram all our Christmas shopping in before the big day.  By the time we finished our Christmas shopping it was after 9pm Christmas Eve and we were all hungry and couldn't find much open in the shopping centre we were out so we just bought a heap of prawns and some cheese and crackers from one of the supermarkets and took them back to the caravan and just ended up sitting out on the lawn and eating them.  

Pete decided that this was one of the best Christmas Eve's yet.  So relaxing no real work and we were just enjoying being out in the great outdoors.  It also gave us some chilled out time before we had to set up and get ready for Christmas the following day so that is pretty much how our Christmas Eve Prawns on the Lawn tradition came about.

These days we have added a little more too it and as with age it is getting a little more difficult to get down and sit on the lawn, our last couple of Christmas Eve's have been "Prawns on the back deck". 

Our Prawns on the lawn now consisted of a couple of grazing boards along with the prawns, so we normally do a cheese and crackers grazing board and a nice fruit grazing board along with our prawns.

Preparing our fruit grazing platter

Our lovely Cheese grazing board

Dan, Chloe and Mia - our Christmas hosts this year...

It was a lovely evening on the deck, pleasant weather, not too hot and Chloe's boarder Caitlin also joined us for the evening...

A family get together for Christmas Eve...

Even Mia got into the Christmas spirit and was dressed in her Christmas Elf Costume.  She is such a sweet dog...  She has the most beautiful nature and we all love her to bits...

Sarah and Colin were gone before 8pm as they had  two very excited children they needed to get home and get to bed...  The needed to get milk and cookies for Santa and Max declared that he was going to be doing that this year and Willow would take care of the leaving water and carrots for his Reindeer.

Meanwhile Chloe and I set about making sure all the presents were under the Christmas Tree and the house was tidy and ready for Christmas day before starting the preparation of food and table setting for Christmas day...

Presents all under the Christmas Tree

Our tradition Danish Christmas game of Pakkeleg saw us have all our presents wrapped in the same wrapping paper and all in a box ready to go on Christmas day...

Pakkeleg presents wrapped ready for the game on Christmas Day.

Chloe and I then set about prepping the food for Christmas Day.  The Turkey rolls needed to come out of the freezer to thraw ready to cook the following morning... The ham needed to be scoured and the cloves put in and we also prepared all the vegetables so that we had very little to do on Christmas day other than enjoy each other and enjoy the day...

Ham all ready to be baked

Turkey breasts defrosting ready to be baked

 Vegetables all prepped and ready to cook..

Then it was time to set the table ready for Christmas Lunch.  Chloe wanted it to be just perfect for the first Christmas hosted at her place and she had special serviette holders made and had our names printed on them all.  It all looked wonderful when we had finished.

Table set for Christmas lunch

Special serviette holders that Chloe had made for us all..

My new seviette holder for Christmas..

Everything is now ready for Christmas.  The night is quiet and the place looks lovely... So nice to just look around and enjoy the loveliness of Christmas....  Our hearts are full.  Full of Gratitude for a Saviour who came as a little baby and He is the reason we celebrate this season.  Gratitude for our beautiful family both here and overseas.  This Mumma's heart is very content this evening....