Christmas at the family ... ... ranch (?)

This year the run up to christmas has been all about wrapping presents, drinking wine, ever-so-much sun, family decorations, watching Q.i., making Candy Cane Biscotti, and herding runaway caterpillars.





Delicious.



Our tree is a family history of christmases.
Ever so old baubles made by my grandma using sequins and polystyrene balls. And a crochet angel from which the starch has disappeared.



She now appears to be sleeping. Yawning. Not exactly caroling.

2007 Decorations:











Rogue Caterpillars!







And scary scary decorations in the mall.
Well, mainly just the one extra scary decoration:



Ugggh.
It's all I see when I close my eyes!







(much better)





This morning my sisters and I all got up at different times and didn't really see each other before leaving the house.
About an hour after we'd been all home together we kind of looked at each other and realised:



We'd all managed to choose some kind white tee shirt and jeans.
Spooky in a not very interesting kind of way.

Out of Character

Remember when I told y'all about all the hundreds of photos I had to post?
And how I actually would post them?
Oh, that was fun. The tiny glimmer of hope that I might emerge from my camera-blind haze and put photos up in an organised manner.

Don't get me wrong. I do still intend to.
Perhaps after Christmas.
To tide you over, here are a few of my favourites:

Hong Kong































Auckland















And now, I am in Wellington and Craig is in Auckland and the freedom is a little spooky.
We haven't spent this long apart since ... June 2004.
In the last year we haven't spent more than say, the day, apart.