That time of YEAR

I am going to tell you something that will indubitably make your day a 100% more awesome.
"There are just 76 days more to Christmas!!!" How happy as a snug bug in a rug did I make you huh?

I LOVE Christmas! I don't know what it is about this season that just sets my soul aglow with happiness!
Is it the decorations? The yummy feasts? The (ahem) gifts? Perhaps it's a pleasurable mix of it all but I just cannot put my finger on it! Come December the child in me appears apparates with an inexhaustible storehouse of energy and excitement! It's a happy rush to decorate the house and the tree and plan parties. Just writing this post has me ecstatic and we are only in October!

When my siblings and I were kids Christmas and New Year were days we would wait the entire year for! The main attraction being Santa Claus and the gifts he would leave us by the tree! It took us many more years to come to terms with the fact that Santa aka my parents were the ones leaving the gifts for us!! But the magic of it all was simply spectacular! The number of times the three of us tried desperately to stay up and see Santa? Countless. And the number of times we happily slept off? Also countless!

Gifts under the tree

One time I curled up on the couch and the twins took the two sofas around the tree. We waited until 11:30 pm (12 was when Santa was expected to drop in). Somehow we decided to play a game of "who can keep their eyes closed the longest" and I can safely say that all 3 of us won! Anyway bleary eyed in the morning we were greeted by cheerfully wrapped gifts and a LETTER from Santa asking us to be not naughty but nice all the time. I can't tell you how happy it made us! Imagine! Santa actually wrote to us!! We held onto the letter for the longest I can remember and then once "the Santa parents" came into light, we lost the letter in our past.

Another part of Christmas I adore is putting up the decorations. I love gazing endlessly at the strung up twinkle lights and the sparkling facade of the tree bedecked with ornaments.

The tree all decked up

Once the whole house sparkles and shines, i gaze around and just melt at the exquisite beauty of it all.

Christmas is a wonderful time for family and The Kunnel family has its own special Christmas traditions. It is church first thing in the morning followed by the entire family meeting up at our ancestral home. The eldest member of our family cuts a traditional plum cake and we have our fill of cake and wine.

Cake and wine

This is followed by a delicious breakfast of beef stew and fluffy bread and fresh fruit.

Yummy breakfast treats

Then till afternoon we sit around and talk and everyone pitches in to prepare the sumptuous Christmas lunch. And boy is the lunch menu expansive! Duck, chicken, pork, fish, cutlets, prawn, mutton, rice, veges...you name it and there it would be deliciously beckoning from the dining table.

Doing what we do best!

After we round of with dessert we roll over to the bedrooms and couches and sleep off the lunch torpor.

Table groaning under the weight of lunch

Late evening finds all of us up and hanging around the veranda nursing cups of hot coffee and tea and munching (yet again) on fried snacks (hey! It's Christmas and watching the waistline goes out the window!)
By nightfall, we start belting out Christmas carols. Cacophony to anyone who walks past our house but sweet, sweet music to our ears of course! Dinner is another elaborate affair with even more courses, an array of desserts and exchanging gifts. By the end of the day we are of bursting belly, content hearts, happy minds all lovingly enveloped by an aura of completeness.

Christmas 2014 is going to be extra special because it is my bugaboo's first. I can't wait to introduce him to the love, peace, joy and harmony this wonderful season brings! Fingers crossed the little guy has inherited his mothers fervent love of Christmas! Celebrations here we come!!