The 6th of January, for me, has always been they day my family take down the Christmas trimmings and pack away Christmas.  But why?  This morning I went looking over at my favourite source for information, Wikipeida, and as it turns out there are two reasons that the 5th and 6th of January are traditionally the days we take our trimmings down. 

The first has to do with the 12 Days of Christmas and the second is the eve of Epiphany.  Traditionally the Christian celebration of the birth of Christ, Christmas, ends on the 6th of January when Jesus was baptised in the river Jordan by John the Baptist.  While reading up this morning I aslo discovered that some traditions say you take your trimmings down on New Years day, 12 days after the 21st of December, the winter solstas, which is considered by some the 1st day of Christmas!  So there we have it, lots of facts about the ending of this wonderful time of year.

Don’t forget to put some scented candles or pomanders in with your trimmings so that next year when you open the box they all smell wonderful.

Now that I have my blog looking decent again, I tried to change the look and feel of it and completely stuffed it up instead,  I’ve re-discovered my writing mojo.  I just can’t get on when things aren’t right, it distracts me and bothers me and I find myself obsessed with fixing whatever is wrong.  Madness sets in!  Anyhoo all is right with my world now so I can get on with it.

Christmas was wonderful, we were lucky to be surrounded by family and friends.  My Dad’s brother has been here on holidays for three months and so Christmas day was very special for them, it may be the last one they share together as he goes home to England tomorrow.  I’m going to spend some time trying to convince my Dad that a trip to the UK is a good idea, even if you are 76 years old! 

New Years Eve and New Years Day were bloody hot!  We travelled north to friends who live on the Murray River in Echuca.  We spent the entire evening out by the pool drinking wine and telling stories and didn’t go to bed untill gone 2 in the morning.  Had the children not come out yelling about the great fireworks on the telly we would have missed midnight all together.  So at 12.10 we chinked our glasses and sang Auld Lang Syne and went back to relaxing.  It’s very dry and hot here at the moment so no fireworks, but that’s OK, I’d rather miss out than have a bush fire anyday.

And so to my New Year resolutions.  I’m going to keep them simple this year as I feel I don’t achieve my goals when I have too many to aim for. 

The first is to develop a healthy eating habit.  Note I didn’t say *go on a diet*, as this has never worked in the past and I feel that I fail this because one day you have to come off the diet and then I go back to my bad habits.  So the plan is to change the way I think about meals, no longer will I strive to have the dinner on the table and done by 7pm, I will strive to put a healthy meal on the table, no matter how long it takes to prepare.  If I need to pop out to the shop to get the missing lettuce or lean bit of meat I’ll do it and dinner may be a little late, but it will be healthy.

The second is to get that darn bedroom suite that has been on my wish list for …. hmmmm way too long!

My final resolution for the year, see I told you it would be short and sweet, is to stop saying “YES” to everyone and everything that comes my way.  I have that rotten disease were I say “yes” as soon as I am asked to do something.  In the past I have had *yes regret* many times and wonder why on earth I said it in the first place.  Actuall I don’t wonder why really, I know why, I say yes immediately because I’m one of those people who likes to please.  I’m afraid that if I say NO I will offend the person.  So from today on I will no longer say “yes, sure” I will say “I’ll check with my diary and get back to you on that”.  See I’m still not going to say “no” but I am going to take into account all the facts first and then give my answer.

And that’s it for now.  I hope you all have a wonderful Epiphany, sounds a little rude I know but go read up on it and you will find it’s a lovely day!

TTFN