The Christmas Skirt

When I was a girl my mum used to make me a new dress for the school breakup, which was then worn again on Christmas Day when we headed to Brisbane each year. It always made me feel special, and very pretty in my new dress. My mum continued the tradition until I was 17 and had finished grade 12 (it was a white collared dress in a textured cotton, sleeveless, with hi cut shoulders, patch pockets and a pink sash. I'd worn it to my senior dinner at Bulls Britches first)*

This year, for the first time in a little while, we decided to spend Christmas in Bendigo with the Mister's family. Past Bendigo Christmasses haven't been overly happy, nor Christmassy, affairs, but I was determined to make an effort.

The Christmas Dress Skirt was reborn!



I used a NEW! pattern - McCalls 2873. It's a great pattern - no waistband, fully faced, and 8 darts in total with a back zipper. Ah - if only I'd followed the instructions correctly for easing the side seams into the facing - I took it in instead, and the skirt doesn't sit quite right. Plus my posture in these photos is thoroughly shite. The Mister took them as I left for church on Christmas morning and I was getting cranky with the locusts flying into my legs. Please do note the awful blouse I'm wearing, and the fact that I have broken my own rule of fussiness around the hips of hippy girls. Please also note that having seen these photos I will arm myself with the unpicker Tout de suite.



It's a really happy skirt. Coupled with my sunny yellow Saltwater Sandals (which arrived in the mail as we were leaving for Bendigo) I was the brightest person at church that morning. I was also the brightest person at Christmas lunch.



As for Christmas Day, well it was wonderful. The table looked festive, for once, probably because I set it. There were no plastic plates, other than some used for serving meats. There were still bowls of vegetables in aspic, but I made a lovely garden salad with local fetta and parsley olives which my fellow aspic-haters scoffed down. The company was good, some superb Christmas treats were enjoyed for dessert, and sporting battles were fought and lost in the formal dining room.

We got a Fußball table for my father-in-law for Christmas. How much fun is that? Heaps of fun, I say.





Then I spent the afternoon wandering around my mother-in-law's garden with my camera. She's such an amazing gardener - she manages to get flowers despite the climate, and at the moment she is even having to contend with a locust plague. Garden = still looks great.









And then on Boxing Day I took the train to Melbourne, wandered around town for a few hours and hit the Boxing Day sales a little before returning to Bendigo that night. Twelve hours later we were on the road again heading back to Canberra. But that's a whole other story.


* Do you see that? I can't even remember what I had for lunch yesterday, and yet I remember what I wore and where I was for my Senior Dinner in 1986. And I think I had the roast buffet that night.