Our farm Christmas.

How was your Christmas? We were away as we always have Christmas at the farm and the whole family gathers there. My Dad is a farmer and my parents home is still the centre of the family and "home".

We arrived there on Christmas Eve. Most of the family arrived Christmas morning and there was a massive number of us with extended family who also brought family!

Mum has everything ready with the dining room set up a couple of days before. There were two huge tables ready to fit everyone. And her tree is in the corner of the lounge room with presents underneath. By the time we all added ours the floor was covered!

When everyone arrives presents are exchanged. There is a huge flurry of activity and excitement! It doesn't matter if you are young or old! This has been the same for the girls for every year of their lives. Not much has changed. My Dad often spend the day assembling toys, finding batteries and all of those things but now the youngest child is my brothers daughter and she is nearly a teenager.

This is my Dad with Lucy. This is special as he has been waiting for Lucy to have a baby for so long, he was like "WHAT'S taking so long?"  They were married in March and expecting in May but still what could possibly be taking so long!? So I guess Dad is keen to be a Great Grand Father. Years ago Dad had a major heart attack and wasn't meant to survive. But here he is and he still works full time and goes faster than most 30 year olds! I can't keep up with him anyhow! For the girls growing up my Dad was like their Dad too. He was really the number one man in their lives. I am so thankful of his good example. He would walk through fire for them and they really adore him. His speech at Lucy's wedding was really a highlight of my year. You know, when something is so precious you just count your blessings and am thankful as it would be too much to hope for and yet it happened...

Mum cooks a traditional roast lunch. Turkey, ham, ducks, stuffing, roast vegies, cranberry sauce and the whole works. And two Christmas puddings. Here she is dishing up a pudding...

The puddings are made a month or more in advance and Mum also makes some for gifts. Her puddings are famous! Another one comes out on New Years Day to start the year well!

Dinner is all the cold left overs (and about three days after which is glorious!) Oh and we brought home turkey and ham with us for a couple of meals too.

In the evening we went for a drive. Last Christmas I posted a heap of pictures of us all feeding my brothers deer.

This year at sunset we drove, fed the deer and looked at some Wedge Tailed Eagle nests. We saw two eagles up close but they were too quick for me to get photos of.  This is Kato feeding a deer. My brother keeps giant bags of carrots on hand just for the deer. They are crazy on carrots!

Andy and Chloe feeding the deer...

This is me standing next to a nest that has fallen down. It got so heavy the whole branch broke. That mass of sticks on my right is a nest on its side. Its really almost as big as me. After this the birds made a new one up a bit higher.

As I'm walking away you can see the new nest they built up the top of the tree... by now the light is getting bad as the sun is almost gone.

As the sun set I took a few photos. These giant nests still stood out in the trees! It was really beautiful.

By the time we got back to the farm house and all ready for bed we were all tired! It was a long day! But a good one and I am counting every blessing. 

And now we are home and back to it! My new diary/planner is out and these few days are lovely to think about the wonderful year we had and start to think about the new year. I will post again as usual for Feather your Nest Friday and next week we will start on the 2015 stock the pantry (in my case cellar) and emergency preparedness challenge. I really want to go from the beginnings of this to a well stocked cellar by the end of the year. It will be a big job!

I hope your Christmas was wonderful. Our families and lives are all so unique but this was my day! We were happy it was not a hot day, it was really mild and even rained a little bit. That was lovely. 

The year is almost over! What a good year it has been! xxx