Finn's First Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you are having a nice day with family and friends. Christmas is family time for us. We usually spend our Christmas with only our immediate family. This year is no different. Thank goodness our family is growing. This year we have an additional member Finn, our grandson. It's Finn's first Christmas with us this year. 

We don't have our son's family with us every Christmas. We have to share them with DIL's family every other Christmas. How lucky we are to have Finn spending his first Christmas with us! 

Here he is Finn, our gorgeous grandson. Finn is a pleasant little boy. He enjoys everything that happens around him. He sits and watches all the activities his sister Bella creates. Finn started to make interesting noises so  it won't be long before he talks. 

DGD Bella is almost three. Bella also spent her first Christmas with us, you can read about it here. This Christmas Bella totally captured the spirit of Christmas and enjoys it fully. She even got her Christmas stocking when she woke up this morning. It was an exciting event for her. She also had her Christmas photo taken with Santa this year. It was a pleasant first time experience for her and she said she likes Santa!

Bella and her Yaya (moi) on Christmas Eve. We have lot of cuddles throughout the day. I really enjoy having them visiting. They will be here until the New Year. What a joy!

My free range and organic turkey and roast vegetables turned out better than I thought. I made a non- stress Christmas dinner. It was one of those "thank you Coles, thank you Woolworth and thank you Aldi " sort of dinners, but everything turned out perfectly. What else can you wish for, for Christmas in summer!

My daughter-in-law Bron and her new pair of Singer scissors. You can guess who gave it to her! She said it was too good to cut anything with them! I know she will make good use of them. Bron is a quite an artsy lady! 

Little gifts can keep children entertained for hours. A good lesson for parents is not to overload children with expensive toys that only get used for just a few minutes and then discarded. We gave both of our grandchildren their first set of DUPLO each. Bella played with them all day today including an old fashioned paper whistle she loved. 

We managed to get a family photo together using the timer on the camera. It took us a few tries but in the end we got a good one. Finn was wondering what it was all about. All the above photos were taken by DS Mark who is a bit of a professional photographer. 

No Australian Christmas dinner is complete without a pavlova. A Pavlova is an Australian national desert. When we lived overseas I used to make the base myself, but here in Australia you can pick them up at a supermarket and that is what I did. DIL did the topping decoration. It was very delicious with roasted almonds and home-grown raspberries.

This is a traditional family salad. Uncle Joe's salad. The recipe  was so old that it was still written in Thai. My English wasn't good enough at the time so it was easier to write it down in Thai. The salad has 1 large grated carrot, 1 grated apple, 2 diced tomatoes, 3 leaves of finely chopped lettuce and 1 chopped banana. The dressing consisted of the juice of one orange and half a lemon. Salt and pepper to taste. It's a refreshing summer salad. 

My Christmas dinner was so simple and stress free that I had time to bundle up a batch of eco-dyeing the night before on Christmas Eve. The second bundle from left is a linen skirt. I will blog about them when I open them. 

Please share your Christmas day with us. I hope to have time to visit everyone's blog in the next few days. Enjoy the rest of your holiday. All the very best for New Year...

Enjoy
Nat