Our own little Kiwi Thread ! page 74

[NZ primal Gwamma]

I do hear what you are saying Annie, but full muster for just my side of the family is up to 42, so its a nice way that everyone gets a quality gift. This is my wider family, not our children or grandchildren. OMGoodness - that is a whole different kettle of fish. I l-l-o-o-v-v-e-e christmas, so I go way over the top, but I try and make everything myself. I really love it. Last year I made these chocolate houses. I can't make gingerbread very well, so I made chocolate. They were great. This year I will make them out of dark chocolate and nuts and fruit. They will be just as good, if not better !!!!!!

[seaweed]

I l-l-o-o-v-v-e-e christmas, so I go way over the top, but I try and make everything myself. I really love it. Last year I made these chocolate houses. I can't make gingerbread very well, so I made chocolate. They were great. This year I will make them out of dark chocolate and nuts and fruit. They will be just as good, if not better !!!!!!

i used to love xmas when i was a child. we spent a couple in norway which were unreal. proper xmas card white xmases. i would love to just take the kids somewhere and have a huge party and not deal with the politics but i cant. i do make them traditional food from my culture and so on and when it is just me and them, we have a great time. usually we bail to the beach and have a bonfire to recover at the end of the day. but it is the having to go see their dad and also dealing with so much fallout from the past which weighs heavy.

[Annieh]

I do hear what you are saying Annie, but full muster for just my side of the family is up to 42, so its a nice way that everyone gets a quality gift. This is my wider family, not our children or grandchildren. OMGoodness - that is a whole different kettle of fish. I l-l-o-o-v-v-e-e christmas, so I go way over the top, but I try and make everything myself. I really love it. Last year I made these chocolate houses. I can't make gingerbread very well, so I made chocolate. They were great. This year I will make them out of dark chocolate and nuts and fruit. They will be just as good, if not better !!!!!!

Oh yes, I totally understand why families go this way. I'm only talking 20 people here, including ourselves, our children, parents, siblings, nieces and nephew. No grandchildren yet (phew). And I know that for some people that would still be too many gifts, but I don't mind at all.

Your dark chocolate houses sound yummmyy.

[NZ primal Gwamma]

Seaweed a bonfire on the beach sounds fantastic, and I might try the flintstone look, for the cards. I am struggling to make the clothes out of material thou
and Annie, when I have practised my xmas house - I will try and post a picky.

[seaweed]

another day in paradise outdoors. a bit windy but the sun is beautiful. i have to stay home working all day but i am tossing up whether i need to go for a motorcycle ride at lunch or lay in the sun and work on my tan.

how is your sick wee lamb gwamma? me and the dog did some cattle herding this morning lol

[seaweed]

Seaweed a bonfire on the beach sounds fantastic

we are usually so fried by the end of that day that we almost float lol i really love the time i get to spend with my youngest 2. just on our own. thankfully we dont have any issues to tap dance around so we just have fun.

I am struggling to make the clothes out of material thou

do you mean clothes for your cards out of the material? i guess you could use a natural material like harakeke and dye it and weave it and then glue it on? it would be quite fiddly and you would need to prep it prob by boiling it like you do when you do kete whakairo so it doesnt shrink. and obviously observe tikunga as well if you use harakeke. i have always wanted to do a collage with some lacebark which is simply beautiful. even if it is incredibly hard to weave with. re: material tho. i did used to have a stretchy velvety leopard spot mini skirt. my oldest has it now but i would imagine you could cut material like that with pinking shears and glue it on too? and i know you can get liquid hem stuff which could stop fraying on fabric?

[seaweed]

thinking about it. pressed flowers or mahoe leaf skeletons for clothes could look cool too if you went for the more natural look?

[Lizzielou]

Crickey we are getting all crafty on here!

Zoe - I love that you outsource like that. My kidlets do a fair bit outside of the house, but they are super keen to continue at home too. They go to kindy, daycare, or school where there is just access to fun crafty things all the time and over time they've learnt that they love to do that. My little miss simply loves playdough, and generally asks for it every day if we have time - I keep a plastic container in the cupboard with all the playdough and gear for easy storage and cleanup. We also have the felt pen container which does a great deal of traffic from the cupboard to the kitchen bench for any number of art projects, along with the 'art box' which is full of scrap paper, stickers, glitter, glue, paint etc. What does you husband write? Is he working on a novel, or blog or just anything that takes his fancy?

Christmas - I love it. Its hard to find the right balance for me, and sounds like many of you all too. It has to be enough fuss to be fun and special, but not stressful and expensive, then also I don't want it to be too low key. My husbands family always make a big stressful fuss that usually ends with people not speaking to each other and my family like to have 'just a quiet one' every year which is boring and stressful in its own right. So far this year we're in denial, we've tried to plan to have it at our house but other than that havn't put much thought into what we'll do. I love buying presents, or making them (but I get the impression my homemade gifts are not as loved as they should be). I think there is nothing nicer that gifting a well chosen present to someone that you care about.

Off to my appointment with the specialist about my poor toe at 1pm. Looking forward to finally making some progress with its treatment because I'm getting so sick of it being sore - more annoying that painful, and it stops me from walking/running and I'm finding lots of the kettlebell excercises are difficult too (who knew a big toe was so important?).

[zoebird]

I'm not at all interested in holidays. As a kid, they were fun -- but I preferred the seasonal activities to the object-oriented stuff. For me, it was always hard because I would often not get what I wanted, and get too much of what I didn't want. And that continues to this day.

As an adult, you add the layer of family drama, and holidays were a chore, not a joy. Add to that the way that I work (ie, americans and their work schedules), and DH and I would have christmas day off, which spent driving all over creation to eat food we didn't want (or couldn't eat), be berated by family for not being nice or whatever, and then going home exhausted to get up early to work the next day.

So, I really don't give a shit about christmas.

From there, we moved here and the seasons are flipped. Christmas in summer feels ridiculous. Santa is just a nice story, we don't re-enact it any more than we would re-enact curious george. We asked family to stop talking to DS about Jesus (also a nice story) or Santa in terms of "what are you getting for santa?" and "aren't you glad the baby jesus came to save us?" DS was thoroughly confused about how a baby was helpful for salvation.

I'm raising him buddhist. He knows that salvation is his own doing -- assuming he needs it at all.

Anyway, we don't do gifts at holidays -- ew do experiences. Other family members give gifts, and we talk to DS about gratitude for that but that it's just generousity on their part and not an obligation that you do just because that's a cultural tradition. We celebrate holidays in a lot of ways, and the way that we do is not through gift giving, but through spending time together and doing fun activity that enrich all of us.

Thus, we are breaking the "holiday = objects" idea.

It's been going well. The school backs us up in this simplicity (we spoke to them about it before), and they are pretty clear on the process as well in their own pedagogy.

End of the day, I'm slowly extracting myself from any christmas sheenanigans.

[Lizzielou]

Holiday=objects is so true isn't it, although the americanism of 'holiday' is not quite right here in NZ. Obviously when I think of holidays I think of experiences, but then its also true when I think about birthdays and christmas's past I only remember the experiences, not the gifts at all.

It really does ruin christmas that we get so caught up on the gift part, although I love the gifting so I'm not sure I'm ready to give that away either. My in-laws always do that pick a name from the hat thing at christmas, so you have to buy for just one person. I'm torn about this method though. I like that it means you aren't inundated with useless or unwanted gifts, and it means you can spend more money on a suitable gift for the person you have chosen. But.....its not really what christmas gifting is supposed to be about, I enjoy chosing/finding that perfect gift for someone as a token of my appreciation for them and I feel like I miss out on that.

How interesting that you are bringing up your boy as buddhist. My husband and I have spent alot of time in buddhist countries and I've done a fair bit of reading about buddhist ways, in fact we have a buddha who looks over our home from the top of our bookshelf and we have a beautiful painting of buddhist monks from Myanma on our living room wall. I wouldn't call myself Buddhist but I certainly follow much of their philosophies and teachings.

So I'm back from my appointment with the specialist, he thinks that there is no sign of trauma on the x-ray but there is definately stiffness and some 'mechanical blockage' going on in the joint. Possibly early arthritis, possibly beginnings of a burr (bony growth). Off to have an MRI in the next 6 weeks, and getting the podiatrist to make me some fancy supports for my shoes - looks like I'll have to give away my vibrams....boooooo....hissssss!!!