Shout out

This is a big shout out to a very special new follower of mine: Stacey from Revisions Of Grandeur. She is officially my 1500th follower (not including Facebook and Twitter) and I figured that this deserves a mention.

At this point I know that she is also a homeschooling mom and that she has a couple of really crafty posts on her blog. As she only just started following me I haven’t had time to really discover her blog properly but I loved her post with the paper cut snowflakes on the windows. I had to smile when I saw this picture.

Spending Christmas here in Australia is so totally different to what my husband and I are used to from growing up in Switzerland. Decorations of the houses, at least in our area, are rare and getting in the Christmas spirit sometimes feels a bit difficult. When you’re used to the hustling and bustling of a ski resort, that is getting ready for Christmas, where the council decorates the main road and some other points over the Holidays and all the houses usually have decorations outside too, it just feels a bit slow here. It can’t be the fact that Christmas here happens in summer. The temperature has nothing to do with it. Maybe the fact, that it’s not getting dark until late makes a difference, but honestly, I think it’s the mentality. People seem to just not want to spend too much time decorating the outside of their homes.

Only just slightly more sophisticated than my paper cut snowflakes… only just…

Now to get back to the paper cut snowflakes: In order to get a bit more into the mood, we started the tradition that the kids put up one ornament a day each until the tree is totally decorated, usually around December 20th. We also decorate the outside of the house a little bit, mainly with solar panel LED lights. Now last year I sat down with the kids and we made some paper cut snowflakes. It was meant as a little joke as my mother-in-law made a remark about not really missing the snow over Christmas. When she came over to celebrate with us, we had some “snowflakes” hanging over the dinner table.

To be honest: What started as a joke will probably turn into being part of our decoration now. Not only was it great fun to make those paper cuts with the kids, but seeing them hang there was really nice and they actually looked great. When you then have temperatures of 37C (about 98F) outside, it seems even more fun.

Ha! And now I made a post that was meant to be about my 1500th follower about my Christmas decorations… Please forgive me 😉

Anyway… in welcoming Stacey as my 1500th follower I actually reached one of my goals for 2015 for this blog today. The stats have been really good to me over the last 3 months, you guys have been really good to me! Thank you so much for all the visits, likes, comments and follows.

This blog and this community mean a lot to me. It’s uplifting to come over here and write my thoughts down, read your posts and then get further into it by commenting.

So thank you again, you all, for all your support. Enjoy the Advent time (do you all celebrate this too?) and the lead up to Christmas. I know for some it can be a hard time and still there’s something really special about it. It’s the time to reflect on who you are and what your life is all about. Take advantage of the early nights (at least the ones on the side of this globe where it’s dark at 5pm already…), slow down and take your time to breathe and relax and “look to the inside”.