Christmas weekend

We had a fabulous weekend.

• Friday night we all went out to dinner to a local restaurant and had the best meal in the company of wonderfully kind and caring friends. It was a great start to the "official" Christmas festivities.
• Afterwards sitting enjoying the balmy weather, a drink or too and the fairy lights out on the verandah.

• Saturday morning, up not too early to open our presents. I struck gold this year, especially as Bitchypoo has been working part time since finishing school and now is "flush" with cash. My sister felt sorry for me as usually Bitchypoo doesn't get me anything so she had bought lots of little presents for me.  So, with lots of presents from my sister and all the presents from Bitchypoo, plus presents from the rest of my family and friends, I well and truly did very well.

• I will have to take photos of my bounty, we have been way too busy to have time to do that, so I might save them for another post.

• E (Bitchypoo) loved her hand made Christmas stocking and even left a lovely comment on my Christmas stocking post on Christmas afternoon, it was so cute and almost made me cry!

• I made J a pin cushion as part of her Christmas present.
• Christmas day weather-wise was pretty darn good too. With the threat of severe weather including very heavy rain we were a little concerned, however the weather couldn't have been much better. It stayed relatively dry with only a shower or two later in the afternoon. The sun even tried to peak out from the clouds late morning, which made it a little humid. It wasn't too hot, so we had a lovely lunch with family and friends.  Lunch included turkey, ham, prawns, stuffing, a sugar snap pea salad and beetroot, feta, and walnut salad, followed by J's fabulous ice cream dessert, shortbread, black and white cookies and rocky road.
• Saturday night was very relaxing spent watching videos and enjoying a quiet evening.

• Sunday the weather worsened so we took the opportunity to partake in a bit of craftiness. My friend J helped me baste a quilt. She was excellent help and we had it finished in no time and now I'm all set to start on the quilting.
• In the evening we sat out on the verandah again, under the fairy lights and had cheese and biscuits and wine, whilst enjoying the balmy and less rainy weather.
• This morning we had a coffee along the river, and then did a spot of shopping.
• This afternoon I pieced the backing of the Spice Boxes quilt, with more help from J as my mathematical ability disappeared and I completely miscalculated by forgetting to add seam allowances. After much cursing and hair pulling we eventually came up with a design that was pleasing and was big enough.
• Tonight, dinner was lamb on the BBQ with roast potatoes and Greek salad and we went to see Little Fockers, very funny and a great end to the day.

It was just the nicest Christmas I have had in quite a few years, no hassles, no arguments, just relaxing, enjoyable and stress free. I hope everyone else was as lucky as we were and had a stress free time too.

No views like this, the weather has been pretty ordinary, a fair bit of rain and no blue sky or sun for almost a week now, but I am not going to complain as there are a lot of people who are in the midst of very serious floods, and doing it tough. We have been very lucky here as it could have been far worse.

This male King Parrot visited us today dressed in his best Christmas finery.

Still wishing everyone a nice stress free and peaceful time for the end of 2010.