Merry Christmas!

We have had a great Christmas season, our first here in the US. Upon returning from Seattle the first thing we did was buy a real North Carolina fir tree. It's different to Australian Christmas trees as it doesn't have a strong smell to it, which was a little disappointing. But to make up for this it is a very beautiful tree with short needles and sturdier branches. We all had a good time decorating it with lights, tinsel and red & blue decorations (that's another difference here - your tree decorations must be colour co-ordinated - no mixing of colours!)












During December we had an advent calendar that Lucy opened each day. She loved opening the little doors, unwrapping the tissue paper and then placing the object on the nativity scene. On Christmas Eve we attended a carols (by candlelight) service at church and then had dinner at Dean & Debbie's. The dinner was great - an informal gathering of friends for a meal complete with fireworks and carol singing around the piano (yes we are in America!)









Christmas Day was a luxurious sleep in until 9am followed by a pancake breakfast. Then we opened presents, had a light lunch and then napped again in the afternoon. We had an early dinner - the works with turkey, baked sweet potato casserole, apple sauce ande green beans followed by our birthday cake for Jesus. This year we had a non-traditional fruit cake with candied orange peel, chocolate covered almonds and golden raisins. The other main ingredient was egg whites so the cake itself was very light and very delicious as evidenced by Lucy in this video!