Christmas in Scotland

Some pre-Christmas Day present opening - Yay

Getting ready to bring Good Cheer to the UK

Edinburgh - Great view from the hotel.  Not that the kids even looked outside.

Christmas Day - After Church time for the Christmas dinner  - very nice too

Boxing Day - Leaving Sunny Edinburgh for Laide over the Tay bridge (what a view!)

Things cleared up pretty quick though, making our way through the Grampians to Inverness

Turn left at Inverness and keep going - of course if you want this scenery you might just as easily take the national Park route to Taupo.

Finally there - Home sweet home for the next 6 days.  The neighbours are pretty quiet.

Not doing much! Down to the beach here and in Ullapool to collect sea glass for Sarah's necklace.

The three wisemen down the lane

Mind you, not too much time for sight seeing - 4 pm and its time to put the fire on. - Wish you were here.

The build up to Christmas

We love the lead up to Christmas. So much going on.

Here we are decorating some gingerbread men.

Putting up our Christmas tree.

And here it is!

Mum helped us to make our own advent calendar.

The malls have huge Christmas trees!

And a huge soft bear!!

And we found Santa!

Even there were pony rides being offered at the Carouge Christmas markets.

Escalade!

In Geneva, a big celebration is Escalade. 

They let the children dress up for school and the children prepare vegetable soup for lunch.

In the evening, the kids all get together in front of the school

First a parade, then some singing and after, some supper of vegetable soup, bread and cheese, hot tea or hot wine and ...

...blue candy floss!!

All followed by some crazy dancing.

A traditional chocolate soup pot is shared. Where there are lots of children, a giant one is brought out.

We had our own little one to share.

The marzipan vegetables inside and the 'cracker' lollies.