Christmas Eve

So! We had a relatively good flight to Melbourne. We arrived in KL after a little delay (when is Air Asia ever not delayed?!) and booked into the Concorde Hotel for the afternoon, which is a 15 mins drive from the airport. We had the choice of a really budget hotel at the airport called 'Tunes', but decided on the more upmarket 3 star one a little drive away as there was a pool, a great bar and a fab restaurant buffet. We actually had a great evening there and the buffet dinner was great. We then spent the evening at the bar, having a few hours sleep and then getting a god-awful middle of the night flight to Melbourne. It was actually a good choice as the girls slept most of the way there so buy the time we arrived in Melbourne at lunchtime, we were all pretty much happy!

It was so wonderful to see everyone and we had lunch at Fiona & Gary's and the little blonde curly cousins played together in the trampoline and blow up pools in the garden.

The next few days were spent running around getting Christmas pressies and generally just oohing and aahing at the supermarket food! (I love the selection of cheeses and cheap quality wines and meat!)

Christmas Eve I, shock of all shocks, took the girls to church! There was a family Christmas Eve mass at 7pm and what a fantastic experience. The girls were in their element. All the children were allowed to sit on the floor in front of the altar and there was a live nativity acted out for them (instead of a sermon), Christmas carols sung that they knew (instead of hymns) and then during Communion, they were all taken up on to the altar to sing carols and hold candles.Then Santa came and gave them all little nativity trinkets.

Annalise made two friends her own age and was sooooo happy. I met some wonderful parents there who asked if the girls were going to the Catholic school in January. Oh, I so wanted to say 'yes...the girls will be and will be in a normal lovely school finally, with lots of play and no homework!' but ....

After church, there was coffee and cakes for everyone to share - the community were so welcoming. Then Nan came and picked us up and took us to the pub for dinner (!) where Andrew was waiting for us.

We had a fab meal and then went home, sat watching carols by candlelight whilst the girls played sack races and danced in their handmade stockings I made for them for their first Christmases after they were born and then I managed to coax the girls into bed by midnight so that Santa would come!