This Christmas is full of love and hope and looking forward to the new year! We have been through a lot and it's wonderful that we have so much to look forward to!
fought and won the battle of showering
with reindeer horns and Christmas cheer!
The Christmas tree was looking very sad and propped up by God knows what. It looked like 
Any way, as industrious as he is, he managed to find and assemble a wonderful metal stand that will last us a long time. Searching for the legs for my damn tree has always been a mission. Before Zak came along, I would just stick the thing into our cement umbrella stand thing that I had to roll in and out of the house each year!
I swear the Grinch is involved somehow, because there are always things missing from the previous year. And /@aimeludick
Hive account
packs everything away so neatly. Normally a few days after Christmas, we find the Christmas Tree's feet!🙄🙄🙄
Well, we found lots of Christmas decorations, and even though the ones for the tree are not up yet (we're waiting for lights to go on first). It was so lovely to pick up and photograph all these beautiful decorations, some of the hand made by my mother and I. We are missing one damn bauble though. The one for Granny! Damn Grinch. I will make a plan. The idea is, to only bring my mother over in the late afternoon of Christmas eve, when everything is almost done. But we'll save the baubles and the star at the top for her!
As for the cookies, I decided that this year, I would let the kids go wild, without me micromanaging (lol) and decorate the cookies with Royal Icing.
The icing turned out to be SO much work. I did have an accident with the first egg, as I was trying to separate the white and the yellow, but I got the hang of it later on. I realized we were going to need a lot of icing!
I decided to make a double batch of icing because I was paranoid that we were going to run out!
I divided the icing into Christmas colours. Using Gel Colour was amazing. Because in the past we used to us that horrible stuff they sell at the supermarket that they call "food colouring',' but all it does is water down your icing! 🙄 The Gel just requires a few drops and then magic happens! I obviously discovered that when when making Matthew's red velvet cake.
Sooo I will have to visit the baking shop again - which is such a trap because I want everything and I walk in, not wanting to spend more than R500, but end up spending R2000! It's an evil place, I tell you!). Don't tell Zak! I suppose it's like guys buying Warhammer stuff. I just freaking love baking!
but, I see there is still quite a lot of icing left! Now I just need to figure out if I have some time (in-between all the roasting and prep work for the trifle et al) to decorate some cookies myself! We have a giant assortment bucket so I don't even have to bake them!
Almost everything will be wrapped in bacon and cooked in booze of some sort with LOADS of garlic!
The kids were awesome though. There was very little bickering and mostly laughter and sounds of joy! It made me so happy to see us doing things together as a family. That is where the magic truly lies, right? ✨
The cookies turned out wonderfully (after mommy added some more glitter to the terrifying ones) and the royal icing is drying beautifully! We will be able to hang the ones we want on the tree and we'll give away a few to one or two families.
It was so lovely to finally feel the Christmasness last night! It has taken until now to happen.
and I are now on leave, together, which is fantastic, and a first, and we are just so happy to spread the cheer!❤️
Next, we need to go visit the lights that have gone up all over Cape Town! I believe there is a map that leads from the northern suburbs down to the south, and then of course, saving the best for last, we'll had north west to see the
Annual Official Christmas Lights in Adderley Street!
🌲🍪🥂🎄🎆🎇✨👩👩👦👨👦👨👨👦 ❤️💚💛🧡💚💛🧡💚
