LOLling about

Days after Christmas and we are still just lolling around.  Staying bed too late.  Watching Dr Who re-runs and blocking out time to be sure we see the new episodes. Eating too much fat and sugar.  Playing on devices for too long. I'm still struggling with technology and call out for the 'help desk' frequently. Now that we have roused ourselves, well after lunch I might add, Charley is baking sunken cupcakes, Ro-Ro is creating a vehicle from the new vacuum cleaner box and Wanna is reading Harry Potter slowly while moaning about the kitchen being taken over when she wants to make sushi. I'm here testing my wireless, bluetooth keyboard. (Nothing beats the desktop IMHO.) It's good to do nothing and make our own entertainment. There is plenty to occupy us without needing to get out of town although it does seem odd not to be travelling somewhere at this time of year.  Certainly strange not to be seeking the seaside. Perhaps later in the month.  

Boxing Day

To Mrs K____, On Her Sending Me an English Christmas Plum-Cake at Paris

~ Helen Maria Williams 1761–1827

What crowding thoughts around me wake,

What marvels in a Christmas-cake!
Ah say, what strange enchantment dwells
Enclosed within its odorous cells?
Is there no small magician bound 
Encrusted in its snowy round?
For magic surely lurks in this,
A cake that tells of vanished bliss;
A cake that conjures up to view
The early scenes, when life was new;
When memory knew no sorrows past,
And hope believed in joys that last! —
Mysterious cake, whose folds contain
Life’s calendar of bliss and pain;
That speaks of friends for ever fled,
And wakes the tears I love to shed.
Oft shall I breathe her cherished name
From whose fair hand the offering came:
For she recalls the artless smile
Of nymphs that deck my native isle;
Of beauty that we love to trace,
Allied with tender, modest grace;
Of those who, while abroad they roam,
Retain each charm that gladdens home,
And whose dear friendships can impart
A Christmas banquet for the heart!

***

Charly and I got a bike for Christmas.  A turquoise beauty of sturdy contruction.  Today we shall have a test ride, eat fruit cake and wear-in Ro-Ro's new cricket gear.  I suspect the Boxing Day cricket commentary will be our sound track.  But at the moment, not everyone has roused themselves and there is peace before the day unfurls in a riot of colour, sound and movement.  The remnants of Christmas Day are strewn about the floor and in our memories.  We are blessed. 

Lights

 

The property in the Canberra suburb of Forrest in Australia is illuminated with 331,038 fairy lights making it the Guinness World Record holder for the Most Christmas Lights on a Residential Property.

Crazy!

We were there.

In the queue.

So hallow'd and so gracious is the time

Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 1 ~ William Shakespeare  Marcellus to Horatio and Bernardo, after seeing the Ghost Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, This bird of dawning singeth all night long; And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad, The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow'd and so gracious is the time. *** A blessed, quiet day at home to celebrate Christmas.  We baked a turkey for the first time ever and it was a roaring success.  But we now have a surplus of exquisite macadamia and dried fruit stuffing which was just not going to fit in that bird's cavity.  The children couldn't stand the suspense waiting for official present opening time.  We dragged it out as long as we could (until a reasonable hour for drinking champagne) and carefully opened each gift one by one.  We spent the rest of the day playing with Lego, giving phone calls and pottering about until the rains came in the late afternoon.  Then we snuggled up to watch Home Alone.   We were too relaxed to grapple with reading and absorbing the instructions for some new board and card games.  That will have to wait until another day in this glorious stretch of holidays.   Image: By me.  A nativity display in a garden adorned with Christmas lights somewhere in Kambah - the deep suburbs of Canberra.

Christmas Memory

Candlelit Heart

~ Mary E. Linton

Somewhere across the winter world tonight
You will be hearing chimes that fill the air;
Christmas extends its all-enfolding light
Across the distance...something we can share.

You will be singing, just the same as I,
These familiar songs we know so well,
And you will see these same stars in your sky
And wish upon that brightest one that fell.

I shall remember you and trim my tree,
One shining star upon the topmost bough;
I will hang wreaths of faith that all may see --
Tonight I glimpse beyond the hear and now.

And all the time that we must be apart
I keep a candle in my heart.

***

Remembering my Mum and Dad at this time of year.  The children are thinking of Grandma too.  When I was a child we would have cut down our casaurina tree Christmas tree by now and ordered the ham for boiling in the copper tub down the back yard.  The dining room would be festooned with paper decorations and Chinese lanterns with thin tassles.  The wreath would be on the front door and Aunty Val in England's goblet candles would adorn the coffee table.   Mum would have made the Christmas cake and stirred in the threepences.  Whole watermelons and trays of mangoes would be chilling in the downstairs fridge.  Good memories.

Stories by the Christmas Tree

Christmas Cheer

~ Thomas Tusser

Good husband and housewife, now chiefly be glad,
Things handsome to have, as they ought to be had.
They both do provide, against Christmas do come,
To welcome their neighbors, good cheer to have some.

Good bread and good drink, a good fire in the hall,
Brawn, pudding, and souse, and good mustard withal.
Beef, mutton, and pork, and good pies of the best,
Pig, veal, goose, and capon, and turkey well drest,
Cheese, apples and nuts, and good carols to hear,
As then in the country is counted good cheer.

What cost to good husband, is any of this?
Good household provision only it is:
Of other the like, I do leave out a many,
That costeth the husband never a penny.

***

Haven't organised a thing for the holidays.  School ends next week and I'll have to arrange leave or book holiday programs by the end of next week.  While I'm faltering on the large-scale plans, we do have the gorgeous (real) Christmas tree half-decorated and have been playing carols and reading Christmas stories.  Our favourite is "Harvey Slumfenburger's Christmas Present" by John Burningham (2004).  We have a modest collection of seasonal stories that we drag down from the book shelf each year.  This one is a lovely tale, a real keeper, and the illustrations are charming; a point of conversation in themselves.   What DID Santa leave Harvey?   That rectangular box is the right shape, but too fat, for an iPad2 we decided.

It's Christmas Eve and there is one present left in Father Christmas's sack. It's for a small boy called Harvey Slumfenburger, who lives far, far away on top of the Roly Poly Mountain. But no journey is too far for Father Christmas!