My husband has had an interesting year. First, we had some family dramas early in the year, involving sickness and worry about one of our kids and some burnout, which I touched upon here. In the later part of the year it was employment issues. Then one of his good friends moved overseas the other week, with his wife and one-year-old daughter.

I told him that all he needed was a dog that died and he could start writing a blues song about his life this year. He told me that if he had a blog he would at least write about his failed bromances. This is how we keep a happy family here folks, doses of dry humour and lots of time entertaining each other at home because we have little money spare to go out and occupy ourselves in other ways!

Our friends’ new home is the coastal city of Cork in Ireland, with its dramatic cliff faces, rolling hills, fairy tale castles, and quaint pubs. We’d love to visit them some day, but in the meantime there’s fortunately much beauty and people we love closer to home as well. We took the children to see the Christmas light show at St Mary’s Cathedral on the weekend, after dinner at their little cousin’s house. In all, it was a lovely night.

Pictured at the top of this post is the poster our eldest son made at school and brought home last week. It shows his highlights of 2016. It’s pretty accurate and very him.

Yesterday he helped his big sisters to make two cubby houses in our living rooms out of blankets, air dryers, chairs, baskets and books. (I’ve written about our free holiday fun for kids here.) The boys wanted to sleep in one of them last night. They all started out in there but one by one took themselves off to their more familiar and comfortable beds. He stayed the longest, past 10pm.

Other show-and-tell

This slim book of poetry arrived today. It’s a gift I ordered for myself, for my husband to wrap and put under the tree for me on Christmas Eve. So the kids don’t get all the presents. It’s not only me who does that, right?

The latest CathFamily e-magazine features a lovely story of a little Australian girl, Poppy, who was born with congenital limb difference, and her parents who see this as a special grace. I have an article in there too, about the Christmas grace given to St Therese when she was 14. Plus, there are Advent and Christmas crafts and ideas aplenty. Check it out: