Robyn Anderson

Windows cleaned – tick

Beds made up – tick

Turkey, lamb and ham purchased and in fridge – tick

Christmas tree – waiting for someone to make me put it up.

Christmas cake made – tick

Christmas cake iced – I don’t know how to make that groan-y noise but it’s definitely not a tick. I hate icing anything. Back in the olden days before you purchased a birthday cake from New World, it was a thing to make your kid the best-ever cake that they’d remember till the day they died.  Books full of yellow bunnies and butterflies and transformers and princesses with swirly skirts were sold to women like me who’d never thought it was possible to have more than a Jelly Sponge with cream and a candle. I tried. I really tried but all I discovered was that if you mix the different icing colours together (as in trying to put it on and scraping it off and doing it over a few more times), it turned brown. Brown was not the colour of anything apart from slugs. And monsters so I became adept at making monsters. My highlight was a Blue monster. It was  a great achievement because the icing stayed blue and I’d learned by then that handfuls of Pebbles are what kids like on a cake. Forget the hours making the frills in the princess dress. If there are lollies on a cake, you need nothing else. OK you might struggle to get away with no candles because icing and lollies are so much better when they’re covered with a bit of spit, but my failure with icing in my twenties showed me that I’m not always going to come out on top unless I bend the rules to suit the available talent. So every year I now “dress” my delicious Christmas cake with a rolled out royal icing onto which I place a ballerina, a Christmas tree, Santa on a sleigh and an Easter Bunny twice the size of everything else. I then put a ribbon around the outside and hope no-one eats the pins that hold it in place. Might not be Pebbles but there’s no cake left in January though that might have more to do with the brandy soaked fruit.

Kids here– two more sleeps for the big ones and eleven for the wee ones.

Food preferences –  I have the vegetarian recipes on standby but have a feeling toast, baked beans and noodles will suffice.

Strawberries – we’ve had two feeds. That’s more than we’ve had other years when the strawberry thieves are here.

Everyone else – rolling along behind in stages like avalanches of love that need to be shovelled up at the airport and deposited on the decks and around our table. No more wondering what they’re up to because we can see them and ask the question as it pops into our minds. Proper hugs, lots of laughs and memories being made to hold us through the months we all get to live somewhere else.

My go slow/let everyone else do some organizing button – shakey but at this point, working.

Merry Christmas. Thank you – all 53 of you, for occasionally tuning into my blog.