Christmas Wrap Up (at long last!)

It always gets hectic at this time of the year and then there is this slump afterwards when you are left with left overs and lots of presents.

My lead up to Christmas was quite stressful, taking on too many craft markets, a stint in hospital and stress at work regarding my timetable for 2010. But it is all over now and I am now feeling like I can sit back and reflect on the last month and start planning for next year.

Our celebrations start on Christmas Eve when we attend the St. John's German Lutheran Christmas service. It is a trying time for our daughter who is full of energy at the moment, she can't just sit during the service and listen, she has to be doing something. Half way through the service the skies opened up and the rain started (it was a Thursday!). For most, this wouldn't have been a problem. But our church is quite small and at Christmas time they put seats outside to cope with the overflow of the congregation.

Afterwards we assemble at my in laws house and we do Christmas dinner and then presents. Tori got a tea set from her Oma and Opa and she played with it for ages before realizing she had other presents to open.

The pink gingham hair piece was one of the tea set napkins. I might take a pattern and make her an actual hair piece from my stash.

On Christmas Day it was our day to host Christmas. It is nice getting the whole family together for a dinner that essentially never ends.

So we had my folks, my husbands folks and also my brother who had come home from Japan for a few weeks. I love this photo, Tori had so much fun jumping on her trampoline with her Uncle David. God knows how many pictures I took to get this one!

I ended up making quite a few crafty things for Christmas, but I will do that in another post dedicated to my crafty Christmas.