Sharing MORE of our Holiday Magic!

Three wonderful ladies share a peek into their festive celebrations this week! Can you pick who would like to spend Christmas on an island resort kissing her husband? Or who is forgoing shopping and gift giving for the pleasures of baking and charity this year? And who is the wonderful lass who loves to decorate with the scent of cinnamon and apple throughout the house and loves so many Christmas movies, they’re hard to list? Read on…

Leah Maclean

Leah provides the technical wizardry for The Calm Space and her photographic artistry often graces our pages! The photo above is from Leah’s childhood archives

My perfect Christmas Day is… A morning swim at the beach then preparations for watching the Boxing Day cricket test

My favourite Christmas tradition is… A morning swim at the beach

I want to celebrate New Year … In a tent

On Boxing Day I’ll be… Flicking between watching the Boxing day cricket test and start of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht race

All I want for Christmas is… peace

Shopping – organised or last minute? Love it or hate it? This year we have decided that presents are off the agenda for everybody. We all have more than enough stuff, there are definitely better uses of the cash and much better ways to show each other that we care. If any of us feel real and urgent need to spend the money then it will be in the form of donation it to a favourite charity. The only exception are homemade gifts of consumables – pies, jams, cakes, biscuits etc. All this means that there is no shopping to deal with apart from the dash through the supermarket.

I like to decorate with… flair

My favourite Christmas movie is… Holiday Inn (1938) or Die Hard (1988)

My most fun Christmas memories… Involve the Christmas eve street parties that would invariably be held at my childhood home – parents, kids, loads of food and drink, even a few Christmas carols were sung (see photo above).

I’m able to stay calm and cool at Christmas when… everybody stays out of my kitchen (although my Mum has been known to run the gauntlet)

Chris Owen

Chris writes Relationship Space and you’ll find her at Pink Apple:

My perfect Christmas Day is… On an island at a resort where I don’t lift a finger, drive anywhere, or do anything but kiss my husband, exchange presents with him, and then read a book and sip cocktails by the pool for the rest of the day.

My favourite Christmas tradition is… Connecting with a Christian religious tradition on Christmas Eve to bring me to the place where it’s all about!

I want to celebrate New Year … With some nice nibblies and a glass of wine and my husband and then go to bed!  The rest is none of your business!  But I have no desire to see in the New Year.

On Boxing Day I’ll be… Sleeping and reading the books I’ve been given for Christmas. Either that or I’m taking my book shop gift card to the book shop to sort out my holiday reading!!

All I want for Christmas is… SOME SLEEP PLEEEEEEEAAAAASE

Shopping – organised or last minute? Love it or hate it? Was always a last minute girl! Since Christmas Calm Manual, I prep a list and pride myself on avoiding all shopping centres and still wiping out my list in one day!!  I can DO IT!  At least these days I can!!!

I like to decorate with… Flowers – particularly with yellow and red Calla Lillies which are fortunately in season in Melbourne in December.  Some of them even in my own garden!

My favourite Christmas movie is… Movie!!!  Give me a book any day!

My most cherished Christmas memory is… The year we couldn’t join the extended family because I was working.  So SweetP prepared a meal and we stayed home all day (once I got back from work).  Heaven!   Happy kids, happy us!!

I’m able to stay calm and cool at Christmas when… I’ve got organised, done ONLY what I MUST do and provided easy food and delegated at least half of the tasks!!

Janice Hunter

Janice writes Kitchen Table Space and you can find her at Sharing the Journey:

My perfect Christmas Day is… feeling like my heart has come home. We have visitors and folk staying in the week before Christmas, but after my 85 year old dad leaves to have Christmas dinner at my sister’s, it’s just the four of us at home for a very relaxed Christmas Dinner. After my husband and I have cooked together while the kids are enjoying their presents, we all watch DVD’s by candlelight, relax, drink mulled wine and eat a lot of chocolate. Most importantly, we just focus on loving and appreciating each other; kids grow so fast, I cherish every moment we have together now, while the kids still want to be with us at Christmas.

My favourite Christmas tradition is… oh, this is a hard one! I have so many! When the kids were small, we created lots of rituals and traditions so that the kids would have them to look forward to when they were too old for Santa to visit any more. Can I cheat, please, and have three?

* Watching It’s a Wonderful Life, Scrooged, Scrooge, If You Believe, Prancer and Groundhog Day every Christmas. They remind me to love, live, laugh and learn like there was no tomorrow and to cherish that wee girl in me whose Christmas Spirit lasts the whole year long. We also take my daughter’s best friend with us to watch a Christmas movie at the cinema every year.

* Making a variety of flavours of luxury hot chocolate (with whipped cream, marshmallows, sprinkles, crumbled Flakes and matching sweets that go with the flavour they’ve chosen) for the kids’ friends every December. They really look forward to it, and the hot chocolate always heralds the start of a treasure hunt. The first clue is always in that day’s wee stocking on the Advent calendar and the treasure is always something small but thoughtful to heighten their anticipation of the season’s unfolding treasures. They’re all still kids at heart, even though some of them are now taller than me! Last year, it was Christmas baubles with handpainted names on them.

* In our house, the presents appear like magic on Christmas morning. Only the presents brought home from school friends go straight under the tree. My son still believes deep down that I must get some help from Santa! I like to take a few moments before my husband and I eventually get to bed on Christmas Eve just to sit quietly and feel the magic in the air, the promise of the day to come and the spirit of Christmas past.

I want to celebrate New Year … quietly with a few good friends, and then with simple gratitude every day, not just on January 1st. We had a lot of alcoholic relatives when I was growing up in Scotland, where Hogmanay and New Year’s Day are huge events. I have horrible memories of that time of the year and have chosen not to subject my kids to that level of drunken, abusive behaviour.

On Boxing Day I’ll be… eating leftovers and playing board games with a friend who travels up from England to bring the kids a new game every year.

All I want for Christmas is… for me and my loved ones to be happy and healthy. My friend has cancer and it’s affected me more than I would have believed. Having a child and losing my mum in the same year left me feeling like someone had stripped back layers of my soul and left me vulnerable and exposed, feeling the world’s pain as well as the simplest of joys with a sometimes overwhelming intensity. It can be exhausting and I normally refuel my spirit at Christmas but my friend’s illness makes things more of an emotional rollercoaster.

Shopping – organised or last minute? Love it or hate it? Very organised and I love it until I start being jostled in shops by folk who are clearly hating it, buying grudgingly, overspending and missing the whole point. Then I just slip into coaching mode for weeks, helping as many folk as I can, even if it’s just sharing a supportive smile or passing on a small kindness.

I like to decorate with… the smell of cinammon and apple throughout the house. My colour scheme is always red, green and gold. I like glittery shiny things as well as handmade and Folk Art ornaments. I adore painted wood and metal, homemade cushions and wall hangings, votive candles in coloured glass jars and small Kilner jars and jam jars tied with red gingham ribbon. I always put white fairy lights on the trees in our front garden.

My favourite Christmas movie is… see my list above! I’m a bit of a movie maven, so choosing just one is a nightmare!

My most cherished Christmas memory is…a mosaic memory of every Christmas morning spent with my mum. She loved Christmas, and even though we weren’t well off, she had a gift for making magic and childhood miracles. My dad always says she passed on her gift to me. Her Christmas spirit lives on in me because that’s when I celebrate her life most, not on anniversaries of her birth or death or wedding or Mother’s Day.

I’m able to stay calm and cool at Christmas when…I remember that it’s all about love, hope and light in the darkness. Christmas reminds me that life is a living prayer, and that we were all born to love as much as we can, no matter what happens to test our strength.

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Previous peeks into our contributors celebrations:

Oh What Fun! Sharing our Holiday Magic: Dee from Sound Space and Anne from Living Space

Sharing our Holiday Magic: Angela from Organising Space and Annie from Spiritual Space