Some of December

 Deceorating the Christmas tree.

 Sol caught a baby Nile water monitor!

 Monkeys hanging out on Christmas day.

 One of the completed blankets we contributed to for orphans for Christmas.

Christmas season nature reserve walk

Christmas 2014

 A bit of pre-Christmas acting.

 The magic of Christmas!

Twins first Christmas.

Christmas and after

No pictures on Christmas day! What was I thinking that day.  It was a beautiful day though spent with my parents who live in a wildlife area.  Very hot.  Imagine such a hot, hot Christmas! The boys spent a lot of the day in the swimming pool.  

The days after Christmas were spent fishing and game spotting.

 We visited the tiny Catholic chapel on the hill.  Such beautiful stain glass windows.

 Zebra

 Lots of monkeys visit my parents' garden.

 Catching a catfish, saying hello and then releasing him again.

 Hippos.

 Big catch!

 Malibou storks gathering together.

 Leo was very proud of his catch!

 Dragonfly picture.  My favourite insect and can never resist photographing dragonflies when I can!

Water monitor. How lucky we are to see these animals roaming free in the wild.

December - the Christmas season and the growing season

Our first family African Christmas season.

The frangipanis all bloomed.

We celebrated all our usual favourite festivals, starting with our tradition of making pancakes on the first Sunday of Advent.

Our advent wreath

We celebrated the festivals of St Nicholas and Santa Lucia.

Santa Lucia festival

We went to a fantastic performance of Peter Pan at the theatre.  One of my boys' all time favourite stories.  They were enchanted!

Our first Christmas tree here.  We made most of the Christmas decorations and we all felt it was our best ever looking tree due to all the handmade treasures.

Our Mary star path.

And our Jesse tree.  The figures are made out of beeswax.  We love this tree so much we are keeping it up always.

Lighting the centre candle on our advent spiral.

We were also busy planting lots in our vegetable patch.
My sister arrived from South Africa with her daughter.  I hadn't seen either of them for 17 years!  How special it was to catch up with them.  So very good to reconnect.Then we headed off to the Zambezi Valley to spend Christmas with family.

Christmas season

These Christmas days have been joyous, quiet, peaceful, slow.  A bright, warm day on Christmas day.

 Our Christmas candle.  Sol decorated the candle with decorating wax.

Bike and scooter riding to make use of all that energy.

 Lots of nature explores.

 And time with animal friends.

And now preparing for Epiphany to end off the season starting with making lots of window stars.
In a way for me, only once we have celebrated Epiphany will the new year really begin.

Knitivity

 

 Last Christmas season I began knitting a nativity scene based on this book, Knitivity, Create your own Christmas Scene by Fiona Gable. 

 Well, I was far from completing it last year so am still at it for this year!  It is a lovely little book.  I am knitting the ox this weekend and I am determined to get it all done on time this year! 

Memories of a white Christmas

Christmas day and Boxing day..
Building snow houses - a community effort - children, parents, aunts, uncles..
Walking in the woods
Dancing with much loved Aunty Shel
White, white, white ..everywhere.

All melted now!!
Seasons Greetings!