Happy New Year

Firstly a happy new year to all my readers.

New year is a celebration day in our household. As atheists we don't do Christmas and try to stay away as much as possible from the mass commercialism and greed that seems to surround it these days. Instead we have our celebration meal and presents (only a few as I don't believe in buying loads of stuff just for the sake of it), on new year.

Dad had to work new year's eve  - again! - so the children and I made some food during the day for the evening celebration meal.

Lime cheesecake yum!

Popcorn - sweet and salt

 We had the traditional Aussie BBQ in the evening, overlooking our building site of a garden.

Dad barbecuing

Yummy

This new years eve we also buried a time capsule, and we hope to carry on this tradition every year. We have been learning about archaeology and have talked about what the time capsule will tell us when we dig it up in 5 years time. We included photos of us and the house, self portraits, quizzes, hand-prints, clothing, postcards and memorabilia from the year, 2011 calendar, music school report and a CD of more pictures and video. I think it will be a lot of fun to see in 2016.

Time capsule contents

Digging the hole for the time capsule

Covering it over

Buried until 2016

Knowing Dad had to get up at 5am the next day we decided to stay in for the evening. I showed a short picture and video show I had made highlighting some of the fun things we had done in 2011. It wasn't quite the same as the jerky cine films, slide projector and collapsing screen of my youth though! After that the children stayed up late to watch a movie - James and the Giant Peach - and we stuffed ourselves with our home made (additive free) popcorn.

Dad had to work new years day - again! The children had their presents this morning and most of the day was then spent playing with stuff and reading new books.

I hope you all had a lovely time too.