the saga of the handmade Christmas cards

Remember that box of blank cards and envelopes I ordered back in November? Well, I got a phonecall from the supplier today, to say that the parcel had arrived back at his place! Thank goodness they showed up, but I am just wondering where they have been. The parcel was returned to sender as an uncollected item, but I know for sure it didn't come to our local post office - I had been in and asked them to check the shelf for it several times. He is going to post them out to me again, I hope they get here this time. At least we can get an early start on next year's cards!

We had a Carol service in town tonight, and afterwards took the children around to look at houses decorated with Christmas lights. There didn't seem to be very many houses done up this year, which was disappointing. The best house from last year was even better this year, and the owner came out to chat with us for a bit, and invited the children to wander around the garden to take a closer look at all the little details, which they were delighted to do - normally, we stay outside of the fence, of course.

It was terribly hot today, with a foul north wind blowing a gale - you should see all the bark that was stripped from the big gum tree out front. The tree normally loses large solid pieces of bark, but this is incredible. The wind turned about 3pm and became cold, but still very strong, and a tiny bit of rain, barely enough to settle the dust. It's quite cold tonight. I really can't cope with these extreme changes in temperature, but I'm hoping it isn't too hot on Christmas day.