Did you get what you wanted (ordered). Can't tell you if I did yet as we don't open them until later.
Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

I received some lovely gifts from my family but the thing I absolutely treasured was the card my husband gave me and what he wrote in it. I got to tell you I got quite choked up after I read it. I know it sounds cliched but if I had only got this card off him and nothing else I would have been very happy.

Lesley I hope you were happy with what you got when you finally opened your gifts.

A carving knife.

To replace the one which snapped a few weeks ago. But I'm useless at carving, and always leave it to hubby to do anyway. But I got the knife for Xmas, as he claims it my kitchen. ?:-(

Well I did get him some numbers for the letterbox, and some wet and forget to clean the patio area.

Practical or what!!! Despite not being all that exciting.


Linda.

My kids have been so thoughtful with their gifts to me. They know I'm keen to get my new garden sorted out and how long it's taking me because of lack of resources. Daughter & SIL bought me a new hose that fits right round my section so now I don't have to hump water to the plants in far flung corners. Along with the hose came all the brass fittings, a new pair of secauteurs and 40m of weed mat. Middle son bought me a little girl & boy sitting on a seat garden ornament and youngest son bought me Garden NZ vouchers. I've already purchased 1litre of weedkiller (on special) and 4 punnets of flower seedlings to fill an odd space. Still got lots more of the vouchers to spend, and will save them for when things come on special. The best gift of all has been an ongoing gift since I moved in, and is from my youngest son. He comes up a couple of times a week and provides heavy labour in the garden. I told him I didn't want anything else for Christmas as his company and help in the garden are worth more than anything he could buy, but he still went ahead and bought me the vouchers anyway.

Lorna

I didn't ask for anything but laid the guilt trip to the hubby that I didn't want someone else pciking out my present.... if he really knew me he would know what to buy from his heart.....
Well his heart did A OK!!
He bought me a personal digital camera and extra photo card, just for me so i didn't have to borrow his all the time. Included a gift certificate to print out free 10 photos of my choice from a card.
Gift certificates to the garden shop. Yipeeee
Womens Weekly Best Food Collection Book.....Yummy
The Art of Gardening book.....
and a night gown..........He did good!!!

Well I got

A diary
lots of chocies and biscuits.

but nothing I asked for....



But still had an awesoem due my kids having a great day.


Zeetra

Well i had a ho hum day with the outlaws mucking up the simple plans we had, again. Hubby was ready to scone them when they rang to say, they cant bring the kids home, as too drunk..... so we who had been working all day, had to go and get them between customers.

I got nothing i asked for, and hubby gave me a candle set we had seen together in the shop, i liked, which i thought at the time we were looking for other peoples pressy's not mine.
so i ended up giving hubby nothing due to both of us saying no pressy's so i feel stink he didnt get anything.
Outlaws gave me a picnic blanket. and a white t shirt, and a yellow shirt ( i hate both these colours) so cant see me wearing them unless i dye them. and a plate - rectangular serving dish i guess??? Not at all what i wanted or needed......

But i was pleased we got time to ourselves, didnt get bundled off to outlaws, like the kids did. and i got to see my family this year due to them coming to us for once.

but am so pleased its all over.

But we gave our best friend who has helped us all year. a slow cooker / crock pot, as she had been admiring mine so much, and she works full time, and has 2 kiddies at home . she told us off for spending so much ( it was on special) and her comments made our day, cos we knew she appreicated it, more than any body else with the family presents given out.

Hope all others had a wonderful day.
and ho hum another day has past.

roll on next xmas....LOL

every year i hope nothing gets worse next time......hasnt happened yet.

God bless.

beetle

I was dreading Christmas day at the end of a long week with early starts (5.30 alarm call, 6.15 start)
But it was just me and my lovely partner Steve, my two sons and my mum. I cooked the meat (leg of lamb cos I refused to have turkey as we eat so much poultry during the year, and a lamb roast is a real treat) I remember growing in the 1960's when we had chicken for Christmas dinner because it was so expensive compared to hogget which we had regularly.
We brought my Steve's youngest daughter (aged 13) around to our house in the morning so she could open her presents then she went back to her mums until mid afternoon.
My mum arrived laden with the potatos and carrots from her garden, three desserts and lots of other goodies. The lamb was cooked to perfection (phew!). Thankfully it was a relaxed meal.

Steve gave me a new cellphone - I kept insisting I didnt need a new one - that my 4th hand phone did all I needed it too. But its been fun learning how to use it. I always tell my sons to save their money; that I dont need money spent on me, but they each gave me a small but memorable gift.
My family doesnt go overboard on Christmas - I prefer to give something more substantial on birthdays.
I got a couple of books I really wanted. Steve's eldest daughter (19) gave me the most lovely bracelet. But the best present she could have given me was when we phoned her on Christmas evening (she spent the day with her boyfriends family) and she told me that the bracelet wasnt so much a Christmas gift, but a thank you for all I'd done for her over the year...and she followed that when she rang off by saying "love ya Paula". That meant the world to me!

Last year though, I was presented by Steve with an really large gift box (obviously everyone else in the house was in on the 'secret' cos they were all watching intently while I opened it!) I lifted the lid off the box, and a balloon floated out with a large ribbon attached, at the end of which was a ring - NOT an engagement ring, but a ring all the same. I cry real easily when I'm emotional ..

I'm always glad when Christmas is over. I dread it but it usually turns out okay.

Regards
Paula

Perfume, wine, chocolates and more chocolates yes I got enough to last the month of January and clothes.
My son gave me Jadore perfume and body lotion, my husband gave me wine and chocolates - he gets to get half that way (we dont spend a lot on each other at christmas as we buy on demand all year) and clothes from my sister.
My daughter and husband are coming here in January from the UK and we will have another present opening ceremony then. I did tell her to buy me some perfume but might get her to change that (she would have been buying it dutyfree so wont have bought it)

Crystal you will love your digital they are lots of fun I got one about 18months ago. Got it for free when I bought a new car so it extra special.

Beetle maybe it is just as well I dont have any inlaws to cause any drama at xmas.

Hubby and I don't buy individual pressies for each other any more. We decide one one substancial thing for the house or garden. This year was a table and chairs for the new deck. May sound boring to some, but we concentrate more on birthdays in our family. Hub comes home with little things thruout the year......a bunch of flowers, a gardening mag, a surprise phone call late morning to say he'll cook dinner and not to worry he'll bring all the ingred home. We've only been married for 42yrs !!!!
Happy new year all.

What did I get for Christmas.... not quite the day I had in mind, but it was ok. We had a really nice dinner with my parents on Christmas eve, and our present exchange, just my husband, our 3 children and my parents. My Mother in law is away for a month, so for the first time in 27 yrs we didn't have two sets of parents to race between. I had also decided I had, had enough of the big family get togethers, with all extended family and having made the supreme effort to get there on time, only to find someone was late, and we ended up having to bolt our meal and leave to milk... so this year said we were staying home... cows you know!!! Well we had a lovely start to the day, my husband and daughter # 2 milked, daughter #1 and my son, went down to the shed , daughter all dressed in Christmas colours, Christmas jewellery etc etc, and she boogied in the yard to the Christmas tunes on the radio.... Dad said the cows were not too impressed!! :-) We then had hot croissants, fresh berries, juice and some nice yoghurt, and coffee to keep us going until after out stockings and presents, in the middle of the day we had a BBQ, with the rest of the yummy breakfast foods, we didn't feel able to face at 'breakfast', sausages, mushrooms, tomatoes, peppers, zucchinis, eggs and new potatoes. Then we lay around and read and cat napped until ,milking in the afternoon, when someone else had a turn to help Dad. Outlaws then turned up and said they had dessert to share, so joined us later in the evening. I carried on as planned and put out a hot ham, glazed with orange marmalade, whisky and brown sugar.... very good I might add, slaw and a couple of other salads, and some dessert, to go with theirs... tried a cranberry/apricot and walnut pie, with custard, very good, and zuchotto, first time I had made one, a recipe from Julie Buiso's book, and some reference to the posting by our new Italian foodlover. A big hit with everyone. In all an ok day.... would have been happy not to have had the evening influx, but couldn't do much about it.
Present wise.... got a lovely new electric wok from my parents, now need to clean some cupboards out to store it, space at a premium here, but wok worth it. My husband took me shopping just before Christmas, to a local pottery and bought me a new bird feeder, a rather cute frog for my garden and a rum pot, (Rumtopf), which I am looking forward to trying out. You put in seasonal fruit and cover with sugar and liquor, and leave to enjoy later... have tried something similar with prune/plums, and very yummy. I also scored some chocolate, earrings made by my daughter, a heap of good books, from the book elf, ( me), and some other goodies. In all a pleasant day, but like Beetle, I sometimes feel tempted to go far away, from all the extended family tensions etc . Something tells me, you could probably never get far enough, somehow they always still to manage to get to you, one way or another.
Thanks goodness it only happens once a year.... seriously thinking of cancelling it altogether.....
Kaye.

Hubby had two grotty old 1950's chrome legged bucket chairs re upholstered in my favourite design at the moment. Tarty ( but gorgeous) leopard print !!! hehehe. I am working on getting over it, I promise! I thank whomever, that this print is NOT on loo paper else I would covet it.
I was astounded and totally delighted with the results. Those chairs where destined for the tip as I considered it not to be worth re covering them, Bless his wee heart.

Lyn ( P.Nth)

We bought ourselves a table and two chairs for coffee on the deck and thought we were pretty smart till son and family arrived with the same set for us!
They have decided to keep it for themselves and arrived back with another parcel of assorted goodies for us on the Monday
Great minds think alike.

Have heard tonight from No2 son who is travelling in India and was not on the coast thank goodness. Was starting to worry as we had not heard from him for a while.

Bev M
Wet Whitianga

Nothing........(we are all broke ~ still recovering from hubby's heart attack earlier in the year and time off work) but I did have the family come for Christmas day (which I had spent some time preparing for and it was worth it). We had wonderful food and good company which is what counts. I must say it is the first Xmas I have had absolutely nothing. Usually have been at work but because of my illnesses I can't work at the moment ~ so it was a little strange but let's face it.......... all those people affected by the quake and tsunami have NOTHING..... so let's spare a thought for them eh.

I agree, my heart just sinks when I think of all those affected in SE Asia. And we had such a wonderful xmas. We went to some friends for their xmas eve party and Trent (our 3 year old) came with us - we had a late night (didn’t get home until 11.30) and he was so exhausted he slept in until 10.00 on xmas morning which gave me time to get showered, dressed and prepare for lunch before the present opening. So I will remember that ploy for next year! Friends arrived for brunch just before Trent woke so we opened our presents together whilst enjoying oysters and champagne - an excellent breakfast! Then they left and the others arrived for xmas lunch which started at 12.30 and finished at 12.00!!! There were nine of us and everyone brought something so it was not stressful at all. The menu was Spanish style mussels with olive and herb bruschetta as an appetizer. Entrée was zucchini and lemon risotto with a fillet of fresh poached salmon on top (DIVINE!) and then for main we had a glazed ham, boned turkey breasts rolled in prosciutto served with garlic beans, pine nut stuffed baked onions and individual potato bakes done in Texas muffin tins. After all that it was into the swimming pool to cool down (it was very hot!) and we then opened our secret Santa presents. More friends turned up after their restaurant lunch but we still hadn't had dessert - fortunately I had enough to feed five extra adults!! I did the frozen xmas ice cream pudding – one scoop in a martini glass on a white plate and topped it with an undipped truffle (see the other thread re the difficulty of dipping truffles in humid weather!) and put shortbread stars on the plate. It looked and tasted great. Then I brought out the successfully chocolate dipped truffles to hand around separately. And after that we finished off with two sets of mince tarts – traditional and fig, chocolate & ginger. We eventually finished at midnight. Had a wonderful day and am now counting down until next year but I vow to get organised earlier this time!

P.S. I got a great xmas present from my sweetie - a gold hoop necklace with three pearls strung off it vertically, a white pearl, a pink pearl and a champagne pearl. I must have been a very good girl during the year and didn't even realise it!!!:}:}:}

Well, no-ones's going to believe what my darling husband got me as a surprise...... would you believe......diving with sharks!!???!!!!!

I have often made the (now fatal) mistake of saying that I thought sharks were beautiful creatures, but...and this is a big but... I never said I wanted to go in the water with them! I think he's trying to get rid of me!!!

Seriously though, my son had mentioned that he'd like to see more of sharks, so my daughter in law and hubby bought us both the experience. We have to learn how to scuba dive as part of the gift, then jump in with Nurse, Lemon and Tiger sharks, up to 12 feet long, along with rays and shoals of other fish. It says on the package that it's not for the faint-hearted, and I don't even like getting my face splashed when I go swimming!!

I can change the experience for another but I think my son would appreciate the company, so I shall face my biggest fear, that of being eaten by a shark, and go for it. My son's mates all think I'm very cool now, so I'd better not chicken out. Anyway, I'll let you know how I get on later in the year. Oh dear......

Oh, Elaine, you will love it, I'm sure. I did a padi dive course 11 years ago, and because of my fear under water, it took me 6 weekends to come to terms with it instead of 1, but I was determined. I've never regretted it. I have had dives on both North & South Minerva reefs, and around Fiji, Tonga and Vanuatu. I was never fully comfortable under water, but having an experienced diver close by all the time helped me and the world down there has to be experienced - it's magic. I have seen sharks, turtles, octopus, huge bass and colourful reef fish of all sizes. I even dived down into an underwater opening to a cave in which you come up and that was scary. The surge of the water in the cave made me feel as if it might throw me against the sides. It was very scary, but an experience I'm pleased to have had. And the shapes and colours of coral are beautiful. You don't have to dive deep to see these things, all the colour is in the first 10 metres, where the sun gets.

Where are you going for your dive with sharks? I'm looking forward to hearing more when you've completed your treat.

Lorna