Archive for December, 2011
[Happy 2012!]
Only a couple more days til go until we say goodbye to 2011.
I will be welcoming the new year in HKG this year. With family.
Followed by a brief trip to Macau (to see Zaia!).
Our flight will be taking off in a few more hours.
So I take this chance to wish everyone a Happy New Year.
Hope you have a wonderful start to the year 2012!
[Christmas Greetings and Christmas Lights]
Warm weeknight on the streets Melbourne …
Less than a week from Christmas day.
The stately facade of our State Library was transformed…
Into the Story of Nutcracker…
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The projections continued at the Cathedral…
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Melbourne’s Christmas spirit could be seen and felt at every corner this year.
MERRY CHRISTMAS, everyone!
May this day be filled with much love and laughter for you and your loved ones!
[Final Countdown to a Merry Christmas!]
Completely ran out of time, ideas and supplies for the last 4 days of Christmas.
Terrible looking numbers and plastic containers (shameful…) but my ‘advent calendar’ is complete.
Two more days left…!
[Christmas Baking Adventures: Choc chip Hazelnut Cookies]
The fifteenth…
To twenty-first!
—-
On to the baking!
I’m rather behind on my posting – another week of December already gone… just like these cookies!
Things are a bit hectic in the last few days. Work finishes up shortly but there won’t be much resting between then and Christmas – add to that my first overseas holiday in near two years… I’m going to need another holiday when I get back …
I’ll post up the final baking countdown tomorrow – nothing near as pretty (I think they turned out well, don’t you? hehe) and fun (I did enjoy making these, even though the sizing wasn’t quite right) as this past week though but I made it to 25!
[Nearly Ready!]
Send cards – check
Buy presents – check
Wrap presents – check
Christmas tree – check*
Christmas decorations – check*
All that’s left is some Christmas baking to do!
Christmas is just ’round the corner!
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*Christmas is a pretty quiet affair at home this year with my family overseas and only my cousin left here to share the festive cheer with me.It seemed a bit too much to pull out our full Christmas tree but it was also rather sad not to have anything at all to put our presents under. So I designated our pot plant as our tree this year. A little tinsel here and there (the bit on the tree didnt go so well but I gave up after my second attempt – it twinkles, that’s all I ask), a few gold ornaments around the fireplace and our Christmas angel.
Not a lot, but enough to bring a little Christmas home.
[2011 at a Glance]
Remember this blog entry about my [Walls] and my Calender Pockets?
Well, the year’s drawing to an end… and the pockets are (nearly) full.
Receipts, tickets, invites, bows and ribbons – these are my memories of the year 2011…
2011 – the Year of the Rabbit
Weddings and laneway eateries
August, the birthday month (and November…)
Lots of celebration and lots of snow.
Gifts and visitors from overseas.
Only one more month left in the year.
What will it hold?
[Old Photo]
Spent a good portion of my night scanning old negatives…
Photos from my childhood.
Before digital cameras and smart phones.
I love this photo.
This grainy, hazy photo.
[On the First Day of Christmas...]
December!
Christmas!
Got into the festive spirit a bit early this year after being inspired by all the advent calendar ideas online.
But being inspired on the 30th of November didn’t leave me much time to prepare my own full Christmas calendar…
Perhaps it was the festive season though, I wasn’t completely discouraged…. somehow determined to have something start us on our countdown to Christmas day:
Some leftover Christmas wrapping paper to set the mood.
A few cards with balloon shape cut-outs.
A packet of clear plastic pockets and gold ties.
A little assembly…
Add some numbers…
And I was ready to countdown the first seven days of December…
With what?
Peanut Butter Cookies.
Yup, I’d decided to make a cookie advent calender!
(Sadly, this batch of cookies were not ‘perfect’ – I realised a day later that I’d inadvertently ‘substituted’ a key ingredient…(yes, a full day later). More pictures to come in the next Baking Adventures)
Bagged…
Tagged…
Ready for the First Day of Christmas!
(… He was rather dismayed at the thought I’d rationed his cookies…)
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Not quite a proper advent calendar, no surprises, not even the full 25 days.
But it was what I had time for. And it means I have another mini project already lined up for next week!
Another 18 more to go.
How are you counting down this year?
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