Don’t you feel smug when you’ve purchased all your Christmas presents, and they are sitting nestled under the tree.?

It always reminds me of when the kids were little.

I remember the physical exhaustion and mental stress.

Most Christmases would find us  traveling from Adelaide to Tasmania on the overnight ferry. It meant packing the clothes for a mini army, making sure the presents were stashed away from the sticky finger and prying eyes of the troops.
Pre- travel, it was a game each year to see who could find the presents… and it was no mean feat hiding presents for 13+
Forget under the bed, in the wardrobe or even the garage…. often it was a locked cellar, the ceiling cavity or even the friends and neighbors houses….
But then again, their kids would dob….

But the day itself was always magic. We have lots of footage of our bambinos receiving their presents.

I was an ironing nut for about 30 years…. Well I am still, but I only do my own mainly… everything was neat and folded to go in the suitcases…. 4 pairs of red undies for Darrin, 4 pairs of black undies for Jamie….etc, etc…..Each person had two or three pairs of shoes…4 shirts, 4 pairs of jeans, a couple of sweaters and pajamas…!!!!
Our darn bus was just loaded with almost 40 pairs of shoes……!!!!!!and need I say I was/am still fussy about them being clean and shiny….
When I think back at the amount of energy it took and the amount of work I had to do, my daily output now pales into insignificance.
But Christmas is a magic time and now the Bambinos are in their 20’s, 30’s and even a 40… they still love Christmas at home.

The weather has turned and we finally have rain.
I’ve achieved very little in the past few days in the way of work, but I have 6 new books to review and I’ll share them with you in the next couple of days.