I havent bought any presents yet but I love christmas, I cant wait to put up the decorations the tree & coloured lights everywhere, my grandaughter still believes in santa so she gets excited & likes helping me to decorate. my sons birthday is the 23rd Dec, growing up, he wasnt very happy about that.
OH BH, I love you soooooo much!!! I was beginning to think I was the lone adult voice calling in the believers' wilderness!!!
I have 3 adult children who do (and the baby on the way in 6 weeks). They tell me every year they believe, as those who don't do not get presents - who started telling them that as youngsters?. Hence my Christmas shopping starting in January Christmas is wonderful but no decorations etc. until 2 weeks before the day but they must stay up until 12th night.
12th night the earliest "down" time here too, MollyMay. I would extend even further if I could find a valid reason, but ho hum The reality of the man in red has never been mentioned in our house - oh I lie, it was mentioned once. When our daughter was about 8 she decided, on Christmas Eve, that Father Christmas wasn't real. "Oh really?" I said. "Yep", said she, "it's you and Dad". I said that she really picked a bad time to decide to be so realistic. After all, if he WAS real and she said she didn't believe, why would he bother coming? If it was Bill and I and she positively knew that, then why would we bother giving all the extra presents when one or two at most would be sufficient? Any extras we had, in our naivety, so thoughtfully provided could now be taken to a children's charity where they would really be appreciated. She thought about it for a minute or two, then went out to the back porch, looked skywards (probably to where she considered the North Pole was located) and said "Sorry, Father Christmas". The subject was never raised again, she is 50+ now, and guess what - Father Christmas still comes to our house!!
Unfortunately some of the over zealous civil rights people would suspect it as being aimed at a certain culture which can clash with the Aussie culture.
We used to have in one of the Canberra shopping centres a christmas shop that was open all year round, it closed down & I miss it, would love another one to open, i would not be able to pass by would have to go in & just have a little look.
I'm seriously considering buying my daughter and son in law an electric train set this year as I can't think of a household gadget I want. Last Christmas saw me buy them a Tassimo coffee maker, and I'm the only who uses it.
