Celebrate

With all the young things heading away from Canberra this Christmas we decided we'd have our family celebration early this year - a laid back brunch and playtime in the grounds of our favourite National Gallery of Australia Sculpture Garden.  We ignored the long queues waiting to get into the blockbuster Toulouse Lautrec exhibition at the front of the gallery and headed to our favourite spot out the back in the bush garden.

 

 

While we enjoyed our bush picnic brunch the kids wasted no time in getting active - running up and down the grass mounds, hanging from tree branches - and cricket (played with a soft ball in amongst all these sculptures)!

 

 

They spent AGES playing on Granny K's wheelie walker too. It had never moved so fast in its life before!

 

 

Then it was back to our place to exchange family presents.  Ella was EXTREMELY excited by this stage.

 

 
In fact all the kids were!

The Complete Calvin and Hobbes (Collector's Edition) was a beautiful present for Angus.

And Joshie really approved of this one - a classic Ford Thunderbird model car.

This was Abi's first Christmas. I was amazed to see her carefully opening this present "like she was born to it".

Jody, like all of us girls, loved Abi's new tutu leggings - but not quite as much as her Jamie Oliver 15 Minute Meals Secret Santa present - a life changer!

Ros and Pete's presents went over well. The light sabres were AWESOME as were Ella's shorts and top (they're already packed for Coogee!)

There was no pud for us this year.  We celebrated with slabs of Maxie's caramel marshmellow slice and mounds of Rob's pancakes slathered in maple syrup (kid's choice).  Our Christmas crackers, lame jokes, silly hats, and being together, reminded us that this really was Christmas.

And to extend the Christmas cliche the kids spent the afternoon in their undies running through the sprinkler and generally exhausting themselves. Although she's crawling now Abi took things a little quieter although that tutu makes her feel like quite the party girl. 

We were all happy with our laid back way of celebrating - although our thoughts were with those other family members who weren't with us, but are still very close to our hearts, especially at Christmas.