Christmas Away From Home

When do you take down your Christmas tree? My mom always keeps it for weeks, even months after December 25.  I was planning to do the same but after seeing this, I changed my mind.

While I was doing the laundry, the dynamic duos ravaged the tree and decorated it with a diaper, tea-cup, a tea pot, a serving tray, an aeroplane and a fire truck.  The decoration wasn't spectacular before the makeover but at least it was decent. Now it's an eye sore.

So I'm taking it down tomorrow.

Let's move on to our Christmas celebration. Alden started the Christmas morning with opening presents. He was so excited...

Alva didn't really understand what was happening but she was happy when she saw her present...

After all that excitement, we got ready for church and left the house at 9.50 a.m. The church is only 1km away from home so we figured there'd be plenty of time to find a parking space and get the kids out from the car.

When we finally got there, we noticed that something wasn't right. People were getting into their cars, not out of them. Weird, I thought. A minute later, the church door was opened wide and an elderly man came out. OMG. It was then that we realised the mass was over. We were an hour late!

We hadn't been to church for weeks so we didn't know about the change in the Christmas mass schedule. Missing the mass was our punishment la tu.

So. After that unfortunate incident, we proceeded to the Macleans' in Kaiapoi. They had put together a nice barbecue feast for us and got some friends over for lunch. Everyone got along pretty well and had a lovely time eating and drinking. Alva and Ryan hit it off too.

Alden wasn't at his best behaviour that day. He tried all sorts of tricks to get my attention and repeatedly bullied Vava. This is what he normally does when he gets cheeky...

He wasn't going to leave the two alone so hubby took him out to play with Jess, the MaCleans' black Labrador.

Alden absolutely enjoyed that.

I really missed home that day but after spending the whole day with the MaCleans, the homesickness eased a little. It was with them that I finally felt the Christmas spirit and I thank God for that.