a tree, a tree, a glorious tree

“Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind.” Mary Ellen Chase (1988-1973)

This year/last year (Christmas 08 is what we are talking about here), instead of getting a Radiata Pine from the farm, we got a farmed Radiata from Real Christmas Trees. Oh my lordy what a tree it was. It was just packed full of branches and it was shaped like a real Christmas Tree! In saying that in hindsight, we would have done some selective pruning as since the tree was so bushy, the ornaments were to a degree buried in the pine needles.

Karl, the girls and I decorated on the afternoon of the 23rd. Well perhaps it is more true to say Karl and I decorated the tree whilst the girls had fun with the tinsel and taking photos. What follows are photos, lots of photos. IF the photo has Silja in it, it was taken by Birta, if it has Birta in it, it was taken by Silja, that applies for most photos, but pretty much the first half were taken by Birta, the next half were taken by Silja and then the last handful and the first few were taken by myself and then a handful near the end were taken by Karl. Does that make any sense? probably not.

Eventually the tree was covered with ornaments and then out came the magic texters and the girls gave tattooed our legs. I went to the doctors that afternoon to see about my leech bite with one leg covered in doodles 🙂

Karl
Decorating the Christmas Tree 2008

Wrapping the tree in tinsel
Tinsel, Tinsel, Tinsel

Birta and I doing silly faces
Crazy Girls

Due to the sheer number of photos to share from this day, here is a slide show again 🙂

Oh what a wonderful Christmas

It is 0615 as I write this on Christmas morning and I am sitting in the living room amongst a bombsite of wrapping paper, ribbon and cardboard boxes. Pabbi is awake and Karl is dozing in his bed but apart from that it is just me and the birds. We had a very big night last night and I don’t think it has ever taken that long for us to do the presents, with 9 people though it takes a little bit longer. Oh we had a ball.

A family from Iceland should come every year for Christmas, well at least one every second year. Matthew and I had a blast making a clued treasure hunt for the girls, which had us laughing till we fell off the chair. All those photos will come later though and oh what photos I have, as well as photos from decorating the tree and decorating biscuits.

Jól 2008

It has been such an amazing last few days and now there is only three and a bit days till Iceland flies home. After having our Icelandic Christmas last night we will shortly be heading up to The Farm for our Australian Christmas.

Currently Birta is eating chocolate, Silja is playing with her magic balloon, Mum and Pabbi is eating breakfast, Matthew is still asleep (despite my attempts to get him up), Karl is finding chocolate on the tree, Anna and Toti are walking round.