Mama in the City

We aren't leaving the city this Christmastime and will be nesting at home in our little apartment, so some of my family made the trip over our way for a pre-Christmas weekend of fun! There was only bursts of minor chaos, one spilled glass of egg nog, a few tears (and they weren't even mine this time!) and lots of giggles and shouts of glee. My mum sent a mammoth amount of Christmas baking with my sister and it was devoured in a very short period of time.

We tried to squeeze as much holiday fun into one weekend that was humanly possible. Of course our tree was up and all decked out with presents wrapped beneath. The little cousins decorated a gingerbread house with auntie Glynis and patiently listened to her instructions. In fact, I don't remember much squabbling over candies and decorating at all. There was lots of seriousness over where to place precisely place each sugared gumdrop, sometimes that may have been their little tummy's!







It definitely helps having a family full of elementary school teachers to help out with children's crafts. I'm sure if I was in charge of the gingerbread house there would be icing sugar and gingerbread all over, followed with a bit of yelling on my part.

As the weekend went on the sisters and I had a special afternoon planned for our 'Annual Sisters Christmas Get Together'. This get together originated 12 years ago and started out by being a full weekend of the three of us shopping and doing fun Holiday things together. Then some of us had babies and it became shorter and shorter, however, we still make it happen each year. Of course it may be an afternoon of togetherness versus a whole weekend. This time we had high tea at Bacchus Lounge at The Wedgewood Hotel downtown. It was very Christmasy with the roaring fire, lush red chairs and twinkling lights.



My husband watched all the children while we were out relaxing. He decided it would be great fun to make personal pizzas from scratch. He made homemade fresh tomato sauce and pizza dough,sliced up fresh pineapple and ingredients and then let the kids get to work. Apparently, they all loved it and even the choosy eaters ate their own creations.










We created our own Christmas morning and let the cousins do their present exchange with each other. I loved when Ben asked me, 'mum, do I get to keep these presents?'. There were some cute happy faces with the bubble gum factory that we gave our nephew, and my niece wanted to wear all three of the charms that came with her Stella and Dot necklace. It was a successful morning for sure.








Now to continue with the Christmas fun, I'm off to a cookie exchange party with my chocolate dipped shortbread cookies! At least my boys will have cookies to eat since I haven't been feeling up to making dinner these past few weeks. Hooray for holiday baking!