Christmas 2022 – all the news from our Jones family celebration

After all the preparations and planning, Christmas 2022 has been and gone. Braeden enjoyed every minute of it and relished in the fact that we had three days of celebrations. My parents joined us for a Christmas Eve high tea, which always proves the perfect light meal before a Christmas day feast. Braeden barely eats on Christmas day because it’s simply too exciting. Our Christmas day went well. Summer decided to finally arrive, so we had a 30 degree day (86F for our overseas friends). After many cooler than usual December days it was a bit of a shock to the system.

We had an early Christmas miracle in the days leading up to Christmas, it was the best present Hubby and I could ever receive. Braeden actually slept for three nights through the night till around 4.30am. That never happens and the timing could not have been better. We were both thoroughly drained. Braeden had been waking up at about 1030pm and getting up for the night. Just as we were heading to bed we’d hear him disturbing and then about a half hour after we got off to sleep he’d be up. It’s gruelling. So the Christmas miracle was wonderful. Short lived as we are back to bad sleep but we take what we can get. Sometimes the best gifts don’t come wrapped under the tree.

Braeden on the other hand is a huge fan of the gifts under the tree. He’s an expert at unwrapping and gets through the process in record time. I now hold back a few presents and give him something on Boxing Day so it spreads the joy across a couple of days. Braeden received books, themed clothing (yes, we have more Simpsons’ shirts) and games. I think aside from the clothing, his favourite gift was the Monster Jam Megalodon Storm. Last summer we saw someone using the remote control shark down at the beach and it was handling the sand and water so well I was immediately on a mission to find it. When I spotted it before Christmas this year I nabbed one and Braeden loves it. I highly recommend it. I will warn you though that it is noisy on wooden floors.

Being an only child, our celebrations are fairly small. We were a total of 11 people on Christmas day with my cousin and her family joining us. It’s a good number of people because I get to chat to everyone, and we can organise a few fun games. Having games on the day means that Braeden doesn’t miss out on interacting. While long conversations are great for everyone else, it’s pretty boring for Braeden. So I try to organise some fun. Silly string was a huge hit with both Hubby and Braeden. It’s wonderful when adults feel they have permission to unleash their inner child. Mind you, I found silly string can be particularly annoying. Thankfully, easy to clean up.

A Santa pinata was a hit – yes, pun intended. Braeden has the hand-eye co-ordination to do it but not the strength to hold the bat and hit it on his own. He still loved it and again, it was great to see many of our guests get involved.

Our bon bons (crackers) were a mix of magic and modelling balloon ones so it again provided the opportunity for a bit of fun. We ended up with a range of balloon dogs.

Each guest was given a handful of marshmallows and toothpicks in a clear bag marked “Can you build a snowman?” for a timed activity. They had three minutes to build a snowman which could stand independently at the end.

A snow dog was judged the winner by my dad. I’m not sure it qualified given it was a dog rather than man but it was standing and quite a good looking dog. Judges decision is final after all.

Amelia finished a Disney Christmas puzzle on Christmas Eve. It was a particularly lovely one to do and extremely festive. I’ll have to hunt down another Christmas one for next year.

I printed out a range of family photos of past Christmas celebrations from my childhood to present day. It proved popular with everyone and it’s great to be reminded of how much family comes together at this time of year. I had a whole wall covered but have just shown a sample with our immediate family because other family members may not appreciate their childhood being revealed on the internet. There were some fun/embarrassing ones in amongst them.

Not everyone was in the Christmas spirit. Amelia’s bunny seemed decidedly unimpressed by her Christmas suit. We thought it looked adorable.

I hope everyone else had a lovely Christmas. Let me know how it went and if there was one winner of a gift that you’d recommend to others.