That Jingle Tingle Feeling.

Presents. Coffee & Christmas Day muffins. Christmas cocktail (my jingle tingle pictured above). Food. Sleep. Family phone calls. More food and cocktails. That was Christmas and I guess is pretty much universal in most households. It was a nice day and there’s wasn’t much to tell, until two days after Christmas when I got an extra unexpected Christmas present. But to start this off we have to go back….my husband is reading this over my shoulder saying everyone is going to think you are pregnant – so if you are thinking that this is where I am heading, guess again! But keep reading anyway.

As I was saying, we have to go back to the post thanksgiving sales in November. There is one day where they have all their instore crazy sales and there’s another day where they have online “cyber sales”. We decided to order a Nintendo 3DS for Dylan to put away for Christmas. It was a super special where you get a free Skylander game pack to plug into the game console.

We have bought lots of things online over here and never once had anything go missing. Of all the things that we want to turn up, this is it. And sure enough it doesn’t turn up. We went online to track the parcel and it said it had been delivered. Well if it had then it wasn’t delivered to our house! There seems to be three different courier companies that claim to have given it to the other postal courier and we are confused about who should have actually left it on the doorstep.

So we start the process for claiming a lost parcel, but it’s not an easy process because you have the delivery company claiming that it was delivered and us on the other hand saying well, if it was then you must have delivered it to the wrong house. Now if it was something small and relatively inexpensive you’d shrug it off, but for a few reasons as you can see we really want to find this.

We go into talks with PayPal to get our money reimbursed, again which is not an easy avenue because according to the company all the tracking details are there and on their schedule it says it was delivered. And this all happens in a mountain of emails to and fro and by this time we are getting awfully close to Christmas and Dylan has already put in his order with Santa. So we go out and buy him one, in the shops to make sure the same mistake does not happen again.

Christmas comes and goes, he gets his present off Santa and is happy. Meanwhile Fletch is still negotiating away with Paypal when what should happen – our neighbor from three doors up is walking his dogs while Fletch is putting out the trash one night. He says I think we have a package that belongs to you, my wife has been meaning to bring it down.

So not only was it delivered three houses down, it had been sitting there for a week before Christmas. I put the kids in bed and it’s almost 8.30pm, which ordinarily I would consider too late to go house calling unannounced. But I figure if they have had our package for over a week and not even bothered to to drop it at our doorstep then they can excuse me for a whole of two minutes knocking on their door to get my package.

I get rugged up and walk up, thinking i’ll just retreive it and get home. I try my hardest to just collect my package and be on my way. But I get there and then they invite me in! It would be rude not to walk in, so I say “Ok, just for a minute”. They ask me if I drink, “Of course she drinks – she’s Australian” the Husband says. So the wife fixes me a cup of homemade heavenly eggnog with enough alcohol to blow my christmas snowflake socks off. And a small delicious slice of rum spiked chocolate cake. Suddenly all is forgiven…Skylanders game pack can be put away for Dylan’s birthday and guess who gets a new Nintendo 3DS?

Today brings no words, just some hints on how easy it is to get on my good side.

Christmas carrots and clementines.

Sunday afternoon. Dylan has gone off to a mates place to play. The art of the playdate. That in itself is worthy of it’s own post some other time. But for now all is calm. Hamish is supposed to be napping but is actually looking at books in bed and Fletch has man-flu and is watching “The American President”, his all time favourite man-flu sick movie. He just rolled a bowl of candy and fruit all over the lounge. Hilarious. In Australia it is Christmas Eve and I am thinking about all the traditional things that we do on Christmas Eve.

This morning on my facebook feed was a friends’ little boy eating a mango and made me think all the different things that come with Christmas over here. I miss buying trays of mangoes and that smell of ripe mango that drifts through the house. We make chutneys and salsas for our ham and we add it to icecream. Our substitute here – a cute little wooden crate of clementines – not exactly the same. I always wondered what a clementine was, turns out to be a mandarin.

I cannot find a christmas cake or pudding anywhere to buy. Usually Fletch makes one from scratch and cures it with alcohol for six months but for obvious reasons that did not happen this year. Actually he’s baking one now and the room smells lovely as he’s steeped all the fruit and the syrupy smell is drifting all over the house. Instead the shops sell Christmas candy. Christmas M&M’s, Hershey Kisses, elf bars, snow flake cookies – the list goes on but no pudding. Starbucks also makes a great Eggnog latte.

Every year I buy the boys a Christmas shirt and this year I need long sleeve ones. I can find ones small enough for Hamish but I cannot find one for Dylan. Perhaps they are too cool for school at his age, i don’t know. But he has a summer superhero one from last year that he can wear over a long sleeve shirt.

Being winter now, we are waiting to see if it snows on Christmas Day. It is forecast for Boxing Day which is fine with me, but Fletch really wants it on Christmas Day. He has bought three tobogganing sleds in anticipation. Fingers crossed. All Hamish wants to do is build a snowman. he talks about it non stop. He is fascinated by the carrot nose and I have gone out and bought an extra bag of carrots in anticipation of snowman assemblage! I am sure they will work as good ammunition to throw at them when they start a snow ball fight too.

I wonder if they have an equivalent to ‘carols in the domain” here. Or perhaps the world of celebrity here finally takes the night off to watch a Christmas movie. One more thing that I miss with all my heart this Christmas is my mum. She taught me to enjoy Christmas and family, to relax and have fun at Christmas. My Second Christmas since she lost her battle with cancer and passed away. I have reminders of her everywhere, little bits and pieces remind me that she might be gone but not forgotten.

Today brings no words, just a Christmas Eve wish that you have a relaxing day tomorrow, enjoy a Christmas cocktail or two, I know I will be!

Christmas Yin and Yang.

I want to share something with you. Not to brag, well maybe just a little. I have a little blue box under the Christmas tree. Not just any blue box – the blue signature box that lets you know before you even open it that there’s something beautiful in it to treasure forever.

I ran past the tree yesterday and saw it, but I did not realise that it was one of THOSE boxes. The bow was covering the logo so even though the thought fleetingly crossed my mind “could it be…” I dismissed it thinking Fletch just got something wrapped in a blue box, and then back on track with whatever it was I was doing before I got distracted, probably chasing children around the house screaming at them to get in the car because we are late for school (again).

But seriously, I am excited because it is one of those things that I never ever thought I would own. I know that I am lucky, every day I am always thankful for this life and experienced we are living.

I am also very thankful for my beautiful family which I say in light of last weeks tragic events. I have not watched alot of news on how or why it happened. Partly because it is almost a little too close for comfort and also because the news over here is absolute rubbish. On the Friday, I saw something around midday on my Facebook feed of all places. When I turned the TV on I watched the reports. I had to blink back the tears and was so caught up watching press conferences in abject horror that I was almost late picking up my son.

I scoop Hamish out of restful slumber, into the car and off to get my little first grader. Some of you reading this will also have first graders, anyone with kids will know how tragedies like these have a profound effect. On Monday this week there was a somber blanket of heavy fog that hung around all day. A policeman was standing at the school crossing in the morning, I guess to show a united community safety message to parents and kids alike.

I said nothing to Dylan about the shooting, he’s too young to understand. I asked him about whether the Principal talked to everyone about the policeman being there. He said that his teacher had told them he was there making sure the kids were safe because of the fog and making sure that people were driving carefully. There was a brilliant article about talking to little kids if they bring it up, so I was prepared but I did not have to cross that path.

So a little bit of happy and sad in this post. I remember the little things that are important in life. I give my kids extra hugs and I am a little more patient when they are bugging the crap out of me. I think about all the people who would do anything to feel those little annoyances at the moment.

Today brings no words, just a little Christmas Ying and Yang.

Rantings of a First World House Wife.

Don’t mind me, I am just having a moment. The boys are at school and with my spare 3 hours this morning I decide to go all domestic goddess and bake christmas cookies. They are for a party tonight. I could let the boys ice them but then they would not look like this:

I have not made cookies before. Fletch and the boys usually make them…from scratch. But I cheat. I use a roll of store bought cookie dough. Did I mention I only have 3 Hours!!! It sticks every where. Then I remember watching somewhere that you have to work quick and replace them in the fridge before you bake. So mine have spread like the proverbial plague. The slots that you are meant to stick together to form a tree have pretty much baked together. They have not even kept their christmas tree shape!

I had trouble getting them out off the cookie cutter and in the end I gave up and used a Mickey Mouse pancake mould to finish off the dough. But wait a minute, they look a bit like Star Wars jet fighters. OK boys go to town. And in a galaxy far far away the result is this:

And the party hosts? They will have to be happy with a good bottle of Aussie wine.

Today brings no words, just some sugary cookie goodness

NYC Day 3: Cab Rides and the Green Lady.

Our last day we toss up what to do. Statue of Liberty or UN building. Tough call. Dylan had specifically requested seeing the Statue of Liberty, which is a little out of our way. UN is closer and I really want to see the Chrysler building.

In the end we jump in a cab and head off in the direction of the big green lady. The crazy cab driver gets us there and the boys think it’s hilarious as we swerve and honk our way to the harbour. When we get down there it appears to be closed still because of Hurricane Sandy. There is a cruise that you can take around the statue but it’s pretty cold and so we opt to do this next time. To be honest I am happy to have just seen it, even if at a distance.

Instead we walk up to the Ground Zero site. Not much success here either as to go into the memorial you have to get a pass online. But again that’s OK, so much of this trip is about getting our bearings and prioritising what we are going to do when we come back.

Dylan wants to know what we are looking at. This is difficult. We explain the importance of this site, which to a six year old is extremely hard. At first he thinks it’s cool that a plane could crash into a building and we have to explain it on his level. How would you feel if your mum or dad worked in those offices and you never saw them again. We explain that some kids may have lost both parents in it. Is this a bit heavy for a 6 year old? No, not really. Empathy is such an important lesson to teach a child and it’s in context of an issue which is rather important here. We need him to understand and relate to how many people were effected by the incident.

After this we head on over to the Wall St stock exchange. There is steam pouring up from the underground vents and Dylan finds it all a bit stinky. We discover there is a Beaver St and so we go there so that we can tell Mr Chips (for Hamish) and to quell Fletch’s curiosity about what other things may reside there (ha ha).

Then we hop a cab back to the centre of town to catch our train. This trip is even crazier than the first. All I can say is perhaps it is a prerequiste to be a little crazy if you are a NY cab driver. There is a TV screen in the back of the cab and the boys love this. Every time I have to brace myself and lean on the security screen when the car is swerving, stopping, jerking suddenly, the boys try to bat my hand away as I am obstructing their view.

All in all a good lot of fun for our long weekend. We make it home all in once piece and the boys cannot wait to go back. I am just as keen though I would like some warmer weather! I hope that one day when the boys are older they will appreciate what a special trip it is, to see New York at Christmas.

Today brings no words, just a sigh of relief that we made it back alive from our crazy taxi rides.