It's Christmas Eve!

Christmas is nearly upon us, when anticipation and preparation gives way to celebration!  I love Christmas Eve - there is snow on the ground and magic in the air.  I am spending it at my parents' house, with young nephew and niece as the perfect little Christmas helpers.  Today will go something like this...

- wrapping up warm to go last minute shopping for new christmas cake decorations (the old santa has last year's icing stuck on his boot, and the collection of little green fir trees we have used since I was a child has dwindled to just two trees - we need a few more tree friends to make a snowy forest)

- cake decorating with the help of some little people

- watching 'Miracle on 34th Street'

- taking my parents' dog for a walk in the frosty park

- posting the neighbours' christmas cards

- gathering round a huge tree for a candlelit children's carol service

- cooking up hot mince pies and mulled wine

- putting out some sherry for Father Christmas and a carrot for Rudolph

- reading 'The Night Before Christmas' to the little ones before they fall asleep 'with visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads'

- putting out all the presents under our tree

- trying to get to sleep, which is as hard now as it was when I was five...

Merry Christmas to you all!