Once Upon a Time...

...there was a blog chic who really fancied building a gingerbread house for Christmas Day.

Every year it would reach a certain stage of development,

using various plans and construction methods....

and then collapse!

But finally, after many, many years of prototypes and failures,

she got the structural design and building materials just right!

A frame shape, and toffee to stick it all together.

Perfect!

"She who is proficient at separating eggs" had a plan for the decoration.







And The granny was in charge of cute marzipan animals


to sit on the roof and outside in the snow.
There were ducks, and cats, and ring tailed possums and wombats of course!

And a gingerbread man to stand guard outside.

And they all lived happily ever after!

Oh Christmas Tree.

1st of December is time to put up the Christmas trees and start planning the Christmas Menus.

"She who is proficient at separating eggs"has been around with her Australian Women's Weekly recipe supplement, and I got out my NZ House and Garden equivalent and off we went.

We intend to make about 25 puddings and 2 salads!!!

Obviously a little more fine tuning to get through yet.

But we did find a triangular ginger bread house which may well turn out to be the solution to our gingerbread house structural engineering problems!

The Granny has put up her Christmas tree too, so we have three inside.

And one outside for the cats to play with!!

About 23 sleeps to go Blog Chics. Hope the weather improves!

Piccies For the Rellies - Happy Christmas.

When boys wear silly hats and antlers and play guitar, you know it's Christmas Day at the Wagstaffs.

Dan and Callum even wrote a special Christmas Day with the Wagstaffs song, but it doesn't really bear repeating. Sung to the tune of Snoopy's Christmas anyhow.

I nipped in and out of the festivities to baste the turkey, which unlike my gingerbread house, was a great success.

"She" finally saw her cross stitch framed.

It comes but once a year.

Peace to all and goodwill to all men - even those who wear reindeer antlers and play guitar.

All the Nanas and Grandads arranged themselves for the pressies.

And the reindeer played guitar. Nirvarna, Guns n Roses, and other such Christmas classics.

The Goblins sat in the cheap seats and muttered to themselves quietly over their "scratchies".

The marzipan mice looked on.

No animals were harmed in the making of this production.

Not even any Goblins.

Hope you all had a lovely day.

Vignettes of a vintage Christmas.

Hello. It's only four sleeps till Christmas today.

Tonight I made the pieces for my gingerbread house. I didn't measure the dimensions, too tired. Just guessed and hope they all fit together ok.

Wishing you all a very happy Christmas.

I have two boys, three guitars and a drum set in my back porch!

It's lovely to have them all here.

We will have all the oldies for Christmas Day.

Pressies at eleven, because that's the earliest we can get the olds here from Wanganui (an hour away).

The Magpie Cat will enjoy all the extra attention, secure in the knowledge that it's all about her!

Enjoy it all Blog Chics. Be posting about Christmas Day.

Mostly as a way of sharing our Christmas with all the rellies in Australia and other foreign parts (like the South Island).

So everybody else is allowed to find it very boring, like holiday snaps.

Have a lovely day.