Santa Claus is coming, strike that..... has BEEN to town! The dust has finally settled after a busy few days and I am enjoying the chance to sit here with a cup of tea and unwind. (Aren't laptops great - what did we do before we could work on a couch??) Anyway, let's rewind a week or so....
The first event on the week's calender was the school Christmas party. Knowing that 2 babies at such an event would be very hard work, I arranged a babysitter, and after being at the party I was pretty happy with my decision.The staff at the party did a great job. Each group of tables had a different Christmas themed activity, so Miss 3 and I made decorations, coloured pictures and decorated Christmas tree shaped Rice Krispy (Rice Bubbles to us Aussies!) treats (which lasted about 1 minute!) Then, we ate party food! What more could you want as a 3 year old? After that, the parents were treated to some singing of carols in the gym, complete with the shaking of jingle bells.Very cute.
We had a big dump of snow finally which was fantastic. It was snowman time! We tried the method we'd been told, which was to roll a snowball, then roll it on the ground. It works, but blimey it gets big and heavy quickly - especially when your only helper is a 3 year old! Great fun though. It was also great to just play in the snow with Miss 3...."Mum, throw snowballs at me!" "Ok!!" It'll be fantastic next year when the twins are old enough to run around outside too. Especially if they can figure out how to put their own mittens on, although not likely!
It ws a Saturday evening and we took the mob across the street to have drinks with the neighbours. Great fun, even if the children did demolish the cheese with their hands! I also got my neighbour hooked on my homemade rum balls :) We came home, ate dinner and my sister and I decided that we couldn't let all those warm-up drinks go to waste so we headed out on the town for some drinks and dancing. We'd quizzed the neighbour to figure out where would be good to go, and after having a classy cocktail, we went to a lounge/club type venue with 3 floors with 3 different types of music. We thought it would only be fair to have a drink on each level :) Our final destination was the top floor which had the best dance floor, and was where we stayed until home time, in spite of some very 'interesting' characters!
I think that as a mum it's important to go out dancing all night now and again... if just to remind yourself why you don't do it every weekend :) The next day my feet and knees hurt and I was damn tired! Thankfully, we had no real plans, so I was able to sleep it off before Christmas Eve. It was pretty cold that day, so my sister, Miss 3 and myself spent the day making bright coloured paper chains to hang around all the windows. They looked particularly good behind the Christmas tree if I do say so myself! Before bed, we arranged all the presents under the tree (always gives me a tingle of anticipation) and made sure that 'Santa' had his treats of a Freddo Frog and juice. (Miss 3's rationale - I really like these things so Santa will too.)
Christmas Day itself passed in a whir of wrapping paper, food, drink and new toys. Probably much the same as other families! Although one big difference from most Aussie families was that we all really enjoyed having hot food - a refreshing change from salads! There is nothing quite like hot roast turkey with gravy and roast veg. We had cranberry on the side too, which the kids loved. After a big, late lunch it was cheese and crackers for dinner - again! Oh well, it is the silly season :) Unfortunately, there was no snow on the day; so we'll have to hope for next year.
Boxing Day is apparantly sledding day for a few families with young kids in this neighbourhood. So off we trekked to Rideau Hall, the home of the Governor General. And when I say trekked, I mean walked a block :) Apart from the brisk air (-12) it was a beautiful sunny day. We were happy to discover that Miss 3 is quite fearless scooting down a hill; it should make our February skiing holiday more fun. We were also happy to discover how easy it is to pull a kid along in a sled.
So... that was Christmas 2012 for us here in Ottawa. Not much planned for tomorrow, just a little flight to NEW YORK CITY with my sister for a girls trip!! No, not excited at all!! Although, I must confess it will be weird to be away from the kids. I have done the right thing though, and set up play dates for hubby and kids so that he doesn't get cabin fever. I'm fairly sure that the few days will go pretty quickly for me at least. So, off to bed I go and I'll fill you in on NYC later.
Night, night!
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