Merry Christmas to all

Such a crazy time of year as everyone prepares for Christmas Day and the holidays.  I was shopping in town yesterday doing some final preparations and thanking the heavens I didn't have much to do.  We are staying home this year so things will be quieter than usual, but I think we will enjoy the break and the time to simply take stock and prepare for the new year.  This break I want to take the time to breathe, stop for a minute, look over what we have achieved, and look forward towards what we will do in the new year. I have so many plans for the next year and it should be exciting time if I achieve even close to the things I want to in that time. I am looking forward to sharing our progress here with you.

While I plan to take some time out, I also seem to have a list a mile long of things I want to get done!  There are garden beds to be weeded, a shed to clean out, new chicken pens to build. The chicken pens are my Christmas present! Call me crazy, but frankly that pleases me more than gifts of perfume, jewellery or other things that you use once or twice and put in a cupboard. After a long cold spell here (when will summer start?), the vegetable gardens are finally starting to make progress so there will hopefully be plenty of picking and some more planting to do as well. There is no excuse for boredom here.

Christmas day will be fairly simple for us this year, but will basically follow our usual format for a Christmas lunch.  Local ham, roast turkey and chicken, home made potato and green salads and Christmas pudding made using my mother's recipe. We eat lots of fresh fruit at Christmas time too.  Cherries, peaches and apricots which make the kitchen smell beautiful.  It is hard not to pick one up to eat everytime we walk through! A boxing day brunch of 'eggs benedict' with our own eggs, spinach from the garden and leftover ham with thick crusty home made bread carries us through. I am salivating just thinking about it.

So to everyone this holiday period, wishing you all the best for the season, however you celebrate it and reminding you to take the time in amongst all the craziness to breath and enjoy the simple things. I leave you with one of my favourite Australian carols which I hope you enjoy.