Merry Christmas!!

Here is the first lot of pictures from Christmas at our house....

Finch with the Grinch! 

Christmas Eve dinner.... Costco Chicken Pie followed by fruit dipped into the fondue pot (chocolate of course!). Then the new (old) tradition of selecting one present each to open. 

Mothers new Christmas handbag! (thanks to Santa LeBard in Sydney) 

Cool new boots! And new stripy PJs (jammys) too! 

There were New Zealand Marshmallow Santas all around! Here is mother having hers! 

Christmas stocking time! (Jamie's into the candy cane first thing!) 

Really, could it be??? 

Was the really big present for me? How cool! What might be in there??? 

My very own train set??? (YES! - we understood that someone had wanted one all their life...) 

More present-opening.... 

The gift tag said "every man married to a kiwi girl needs one of these" Thanks Jacque! (it's from the new All Blacks rugby collection!) 

This big present that has been sitting here for 3 weeks.... is it for me? Oh, I didnt realise! What could it be....??? 

...a karaoke machine!!! 

Jamie making the Christmas pancake breakfast 

Christmas Pancake Chef & his two assistants. 

Christmas lights on the front porch on Christmas Eve!  

Gifts under the tree on Christmas Eve! 

A couple of weeks ago the study/office was a storage area for furniture and a dumping ground for builders tools etc. Not cool.  

Here it is after the painter, blind installation people and Mother & I cleaning every available surface. 

We've had more than a few surprises over the last 4 months.... Here's another one - a few holes in the brickwork so high up that they couldnt be seen. But the guys doing the re-mortaring discovered it. Thankfully this is now only the "before photo" and the story has a happy ending...  

... and after! 

The back of the car after shopping for Christmas and a few NYE party supplies! 

After our 12 hour shopping expedition, the parents were a bit tired on the long drive home. Just as well we had bought some cushions to they could snooze! 

It has been a very cool week with most of my family here visiting! Mother is here for a month, Dad for 2 weeks and Jac for 6 days. Here we are posing whilst Jamie took a photo before heading out to the cold! 

This week, besides our 4 builders, 2 electricians, dishwasher repairman, washing machine & dryer delivery man and susequent washing machine repair man (dont even go there on the washing machine story....) we had the piano repair and tuning guy here for a full day from 9am - 5pm on Tuesday. Here he is in action.