Our First Swedish Christmas

This week was our first ever Swedish Christmas.  We'd hoped for a white Christmas with plenty of snow, but instead we got a nice day with a warm 10 degrees and plenty of sun.

We started our Christmas Eve with housework and cooking - see my previous post about mowing the lawn.  That night we played some card games with the kids.  The Puplett favourite Chasey-Ace as well as Go Fish and Liars Dice.  Tomas won most of the games as usual.

Tomas winning Clock Patience

We were treated to a beautiful full moon that night (well, at 4pm):

Christmas Eve moon

That night Kris and I slept upstairs in the lounge room and even Santa couldn't wake us as he snuck in and left the kids their presents.

We were woken at about 5:30 by some eager kids, who were told to go back to bed until at least 7am (we could have said until it was light, but that would have been 9am and pretty cruel.)

When they came back out we saw what they had gotten from Santa:
Alana:
- Ice Skates,
- Beados Gems,
- Lego Friends,
- Lil' Live Pets - Owl and Baby,
- Disney Infinity character (Mickey Mouse)
- Snow Globe dolphin puzzle, and
- Gloves and socks.

Alana with her Santa sack

I think she liked them...

Cameron:
- Ice Skates,
- FIFA Xbox game,
- Hama Beads,
- Starwars lego,
- Wooden puzzle,
- Disney Infinity character (Chewbacca)
- FIFA soccer cards, and
- Gloves and socks.

Cameron/Chewbacca

Cameron's Pressies

Cam's Soccer Cards - he looks pretty happy

Tomas:
- Ice Skates,
- Minecraft Xbox game
- Lego city,
- Wooden puzzle,
- Disney Infinity character (Han Solo), and

- Gloves and socks.

Tomas looking for more presents

Tom's Ice Skates

Anything else in here?

Santa knew that Tom needed a shoehorn to get his boots on...

 

Cam and Alana looking over the signature they got from Santa - they requested his signature and that he answer a few questions

We then opened our family presents.  The kids all got a big lego set from us. Kristine got a sewing machine, a scrapbook cutting board and some scrapbooking stamps from me, a thermos from Tomas and some scented oils from Alana and Cameron.  I got a stack of books (discworld and Fiest) from Kris as well as a thermos, knitted Gavle Goat and lego chess set.  Tomas got me headphones and a mic for my computer and Cam and Alana got me an Assassins Creed figurine.

Cameron got Alana a lego friends set, Alana got Tomas a Villager Blacksmith Minecraft figure and two Simpsons lego figures and Tomas got Cameron a Disney Infinity Character (Kyo Ren) and a minion pen.  (We got each child to get a present for one other child, rather than for everyone - that way they could spend a bit more and get something more exciting).

Tom almost couldn't lift his lego set

Disney Infinity characters were a hit this year

As was lego...

And nerd stuff always works for Keir

Cameron's Lego

Alana's Lego

Tomas loved his Mincecraft Villager from Alana.

 After presents, I cooked bacon and 'eyes' (eggs on toast) for breakfast and Kris started to prepare the food for lunch.  Christmas lunch this year was to be a Julboard (a Christmas self-serve buffet) of smoked ham with honey glaze, roast pork, roast beef, roast chicken and vegetables.  We also had Kristine's favourite fruit christmas cake, my Cookies and Cream cheesecake and a dairy-free chocolate cake as well as Kris' gingerbread and short-bread biscuits.  As usual, way too much food, but all very nice.

Our friends Rose and Dave and their girls came over for lunch and gave the kids some awesome activity cards.  They brought over some custard and pavlova.

Our Julboard

Eating Lunch

After lunch we chatted while the kids played with their new toys.  Dinner was leftovers, but we weren't really hungry.

All in all it was a great day.

Christmas Moon

Christmas Moon

Boxing day was much quieter and we stayed home most of the day, relaxing and playing with our new toys.

Later that afternoon we went to MediaMarkt and the kids got a new controller for the Xbox as well as a GPS for the car and a hair shaver, so we could all line up for hair cuts.