Christmas Classics

For me, one of the best parts of the lead-up to Christmas is watching my favourite festive ads and movies that I can't see or won't let myself watch except at this time of year, it keeps them special not to watch them all year round.

First, there are my old favourites...

Top of these is "The Snowman", a short beautifully animated movie with haunting melodies, made in 1982, it never dates...

From 1989 onwards no Christmas in my home was complete without watching "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation", so many lovely memories of watching this with my parents and sisters, all of us in stitches laughing :-)

No Christmas ad will ever beat the 1987 Budweiser commercial for me, it will always be my favourite and this time every year I bookmark it in youtube and watch it almost daily :-)

But of course, I do have new favourites too :-)

My little boys are big train fans, so every December when we take out the "Polar Express" DVD there is huge excitement. I feel a viewing coming on in a couple of weeks, can't wait to see their little faces :-)

My favourite Christmas song? Mariah of course!

But a new contender is George Michael's "December Song", my boys are obsessed with this video for some reason, the animation is beautiful, my littlest man loves the lights on wheels and squeals when he sees them. Something that makes my 3 boys stop in their tracks and sit still? How could it not be a favourite?

My fave newer Christmas movie has got to be "Love Actually". London at Christmas, fab!!!

And lastly, although this little film "Lost and Found" has absolutely nothing to do with Christmas, I think it may become my newest favourite of all. The boys were given the book a few years ago as a gift and loved it, then last year the animated movie was shown on tv at Christmas and they were spellbound.

Anyway, enough about me! This post was a great excuse to gather all my favourites into one place but I'd love to hear from others out there on your favourites at this special time of year :-)

PS. I know I've used the word "favourite" way too many times in this post but the only equivalent I could think of was "bestest" and that's not a real word now is it?

Cosy

All I want for Christmas is these socks...

Available here

But with temperatures in the late 30s (celsius!!!) this week in Sydney, I think I could look slightly ridiculous and may have to give them a miss :(

Old and New

Old: Me. I turned 38 today!

New: All the gorgeous pressies I was spoilt with :-)

When I was little, on my birthday and Christmas day I used to love lining up my presents and clapping with delight looking at them all together. Well, today I got such gorgeous gifts, that's exactly what I felt like doing, so here they are :-)

Now I know I recently harped on about building up my collection of vintage Le Creuset but how could I resist the beautiful new coastal blue collection? I got a round casserole and oval French oven, and no, we didn't pay Australian prices for these. The Uk department store John Lewis have started shipping to Australia with a 15 pound flat delivery fee, so these ended up costing us about 40% what they would have at full retail in an Australian department store. They arrived 4 weeks ago and have been hiding under the bed ever since waiting for my boys to "surprise" me with them this morning :-)

I love this beautiful Jamie Oliver bowl and server set from my big sis, it's nice and large, perfect for a salad when we have friends over for a bbq.

How gorgeous is this vintage style mixing bowl by Tala? Very gorgeous indeed!!! Thanks Mum and Dad :-)

And just in case you think ALL my pressies were blue, look what my clever mind-reading little sister sent me!

I have been dying to get this book since it was released!

The day's not over yet, there will be cake when my hubbie gets home (and surprises according to my little man) and then my lovely friend next door is going to babysit so my hubbie and I can go out together for dinner! Our usual meals out are in kiddie-friendly restaurants with play areas where we wolf down our dinner while our kids run around like crazy, so I'm looking forward to a nice relaxed grown-up evening out :-)

Thumbs up!

I know it's cheesy but...

When I saw the new Coke bottles with names on them I couldn't resist :-)

Yes!!!

Look what I bought on eBay :-)

My saved search for Villeroy and Boch Acapulco threw up these beauties a couple of weeks ago. Seeing what I thought was a start price of $35 I put them on my watched list. Then I realised it was a "Buy it Now" price! You have never seen somebody click a link so fast! Yes, this is more than I generally would pay for a couple of pots, but as I've mentioned before I am totally in love with this design and they usually sell for a LOT more than that!

I have a love/hate relationship with eBay, I love being able to sell on bits and pieces I wouldn't keep myself to fund purchases like this, but hate the constant last-minute outbidding that always seems to happen! It's the way it works, I know, and I love when that last minute bidding pushes up the prices of items I sell, but not those I want to buy.

I'm such a hypocrite ;-)

Acres and acres...

It's a good thing I am GOING TO HAVE acres of open shelving in my dream kitchen some day because with the amount of kitchenware I'm amassing I will need them!

Here are a few more bits and pieces I've picked up along the way...

Beautiful clay spoons for canapés or hors d'oeuvres - 50 cents each.

A lovely robin-egg blue bowl - $5.

I found the beautiful large green bowl and very similar smaller one on the same day in totally different op shops - $5 for the larger one and $2 for the small...

Together they make a lovely chip 'n' dip set :-)

I know, more blue! I can't help it, this cute little set was $3.

This solid granite mortar and pestle was a steal at $3. I know I already have a black granite mortar and pestle but this one is a completely different shape so that's OK ;-)

And finally, this lovely rustic wooden bread board - 50 cents!

Yes, I'm going to need acres and acres and acres....

Curb My Enthusiasm

Well you knew you couldn't get away for much longer without a Pyrex post! Bear with me, its only my second of the year!

What's happened? Well, I've had to curb my habit a wee bit, it's very tempting to buy so much of it when it's in great condition, so useful and so cheap! But my poor cupboards were groaning under the weight of it all so I'm now only buying pieces I am ABSOLUTELY in love with!

Here are my latest finds...

My first ever piece complete with its cradle! Now you know I'm more of a blue girl rather than pink, but I have the exact same dish in turquoise so I'm going to swap them over :-)

This piece is darker than most of my others, but there's something about it I love. I've never seen this design before, any Pyrex experts out there know anything about it?

A cute bowl with blue swirls, I already have the same design with red swirls :-)

A couple of fluted pie dishes to add to my tiny collection.

I'm still kicking myself for not buying a lovely purple pie dish I saw in Vinnie's a couple of months ago just because there was a big queue and I was dashing to catch the bus.

The bus was late :-(