The tree......

15 days to go until Christmas day....it's fast approaching!!!  I love, love, love Christmas!  I love everything about it - the decorations, the food, the get togethers, the music, celebrating Christ's birthday, family time and Christmas movies.  So, with much fun and excitement yesterday Macy and I put up the tree.  Each year we have a colour scheme for the tree and for the other decorations in the house. And the unveiling of my tree is anticipated by many....well, some people are interested in it!  And this year I must say, I'm pretty happy with the finished product!  Yay me!!!  
Here it is.....

Our beautiful tree

Tree at night....pretty.

We were going for a more vintage look so the colour this year is....antique gold.  It's the first time I haven't used tinsel on the tree but we used beads and ribbon and chose baubles of dull gold, a few glittery ones and chose glittery bows and stars.  I'm really happy with it this year :)  We've used antique red as the accent colour in the lounge room - just a few baubles here and there with some dull gold tinsel and I've decorated the door wreath with red this year too.  Oooh, I love it!!! 

There's plenty to love about the Christmas season.  One of my favourite things at the moment is hearing Macy every morning tell me what chocolate she got in her advent calendar. This morning was a reindeer with no antlers, lol. I've always bought her an advent calendar but I'm pretty sure this is the first year she hasn't eaten all the chocolates for fun.

I'm quite into Christmas music, much to Honey's disgust!  So I've finally bought the Mariah Carey Christmas CD and can't wait to put it on when I'm doing some baking.  I've got a few CD's in my Christmas collection now, proud to say :)

Another thing I love is planning the Christmas menu.  We went to Christchurch to Mum and Dad's last year so I didn't have to do any cooking but this year we are having some friends around who can't be with their family this year and my big bro and nephew so I get to plan the menu!!!  We've decided this year to have a barbecue so I get to make some yummy salads.  My sister taught me how to make a delicious pasta salad a few years ago so we'll definitely be having that, along with potato salad (Grandma's recipe), coleslaw and Macy's Greek salad.  On the barbecue, we'll have steak, bangers, chicken breasts with feta or pesto stuffing and chicken kebabs....my mouth is dribbling!!!  And for dessert, the good old trifle and pav, an ice-cream bomb at the kids request and goodness knows what else.  And for Christmas day breakfast this year we're going to have croissants.....a first for us.  We usually just eat cereal but this year I thought we'd do something a bit fancy!

Along with Christmas in New Zealand comes summer, yay!!!  It usually decides to heat up around now and today is no exception here in Masterton.  It's a beautiful day.  But along with the beautiful hot days comes.....hay fever!  And it's rampant in this household.  We sneeze, we snot, we itch, we cough, we have sore eyes.  There's tissues everywhere and bottles of eye drops on the bench, in the car, in my bag.....you get the idea!!!  Even poor Chilli Pop has sore eyes from all of the pollen.

Well, I guess I should go and fold some washing, stare at my tree, go over my Christmas shopping list - check it once, check it twice!!  

Have a great day and get into the Christmas spirit!

Sing some carols, do something nice for someone or write a letter to Santa :)

trudy_n xoxx

P.S  I'm up to 4 Christmas cards now....today I got one from the people who deliver the free weekly newspaper.  4 baby, 4!!!  What?????  That counts ;)

P.P.S  I'm trying to sort out the comment problem.....make sure you use the drop down box and choose anonymous if you aren't a member of google so that your comment shows up and sign your name in your comment.  Comments are being lost in cyberspace and I'm pretty sure this is the reason.  Please let me know via facebook if you try to leave a message and it doesn't show up :)