Christmas 2012

I can honestly say we had a very blessed Christmas, 2012.  The time was filled with people, joy and God’s amazing Grace!

It started with the friends who were to join us for Christmas lunch.  The Lord brought each person to us in an amazing way last year and then He asked us if we would be willing to have them spend the day with us.  And we had a lovely time with them.  I felt the Lord celebrating with us, showing much love to us and to our friends!  It truly is more blessed to give than to receive, especially when you’re giving of God’s love.

Two months before Christmas I made our cake.  I made two small cakes.  We originally planned to keep both for the Christmas day. Well,  long before then the first cake was finished!  We had never made our own Christmas cake before, but I’m happy to say it turned out beautifully!  Nancy iced the cake with plastic icing and decorated it with silver balls and edible glitter a few days before Christmas.  It was lovely...

Our Christmas cake…

We continued our Christmas Eve tradition of pizza and a new movie.  This time, however, my mom and dad kept the movie a secret.  Just before we were ready to eat they showed us what they had bought – Celtic Women Songs from theHeart!  We were so surprised and excited as we love listening to all the beautiful Celtic music!  My favourite song from this DVD is sung by Chloe Agnew and I’ve put it below for you to enjoy…

 CELTIC WOMAN SONGS FROM THE HEART WHEN YOU BELIEVE from Mike Jones on Vimeo.

We had this stunning Christmas trifle ice cream for dessert as it is just too hot in South Africa at Christmas time for a hot pudding!

Doing Christmassy crafts…

Nancy and I clubbed together to buy my mom ‘Jane’s Delicious Kitchen’ and when we unwrapped our presents on Christmas morning, we found we had both gotten books too!  Nancy received a lovely book by Sarah Moore and I got ‘Ideas 365 recipes for every day of the year’.  The little ones loved their Hello Kitty Lego set that Granny and Oupa bought for them and Beth spent her morning painting with her new paints and brushes.  She received a lovely Usborne craft book too…  Books are wonderful presents as they can be enjoyed for many, many years to come!

Wonderful new books to add to our collection!

  
Everything about the table setting was a miracle.  We planned no matching theme, but somehow everything fell into place on the actual morning when we set it.  We also made our own Christmas crackers, which was a lot of work but so much more effective! 

We had a lovely buffet style lunch of cold meats, homemade Portuguese potato bread rolls, salad and fruit.  I think everyone enjoyed themselves and at the end of the day when our guests went home, our family agreed it was one of the best Christmasses we’d ever had!

And now here is a rundown on the major happenings of  2012…

Our family moved twice – first in early February to this farm and then to our current home in September.

Zak, ourfaithful canine companion passed away.

I bought my very first puppy, Izzie.

I began attending a photography course.

My grandparents came to stay with us for a few days!

Nancy celebrated her thirteenth birthday and Sofia celebrated her first birthday.

And here are a few things I’ve planned for 2013…

Memorize 52verses in 52 weeks

Complete 52crafts in 52 weeks

Buy my first die-cutting machine

Make more cards

Buy my first purebred dog for breeding purposes.

Get our garden to produce more fruit and vegetables for the table.

Learn more about cooking techniques.

I hope you all had a wonderful and blessed Christmas too!

Have a beautiful 2013...

Kelly
x

P.S.  I'll be back on the 14th...