Hello Santa

Good morning friends. Welcome to December!

I woke up this morning realising for the first time that it’s actually almost Christmas. Obvious I know, but sometimes my head feels so cloudy I just don’t realise what’s going on around me. Anyone else relate? nope? Just me? ok. As it happens, my second morning epiphany came when I realised the kids finish school for the year next Thursday!! Crikey!

I know that sounds ridiculous considering the nature of these photographs, but I think I had in the back of my mind that we still have aaages to go before the big day. And the kids still had months of school left. Like I said, my head is usually full of mashed potato these days (can I still blame menopause?), so clarity of thought and forward thinking are pretty much non existent in my world.

One situation that did snap me out of my brain fog recently was the ballet concert. Oh my hat! that was intense! Can we just pause for a moment to give one minute of silent adoration to all the die hard ballet mums of the world….you know, the ones who actually drag massive suitcases along to the concerts, have perfected the art of putting blinding red lipstick onto five year olds without so much as a smidge out of place and actually have bobby pins in their house.

While we have had other daughters do ballet, and I have probably got three concerts to my name, I am always thrown into the world of the unknown and most definitely out of my comfort zone among all those seasoned professional ballet mothers.

First of all, they seem to have all the right gear. My inability to think ahead results in trying to find the right lipstick, round foam hair donut thingy and those darn bobby pins the day of the dress rehearsal. Of course by then all the hair buns are sold out in our local small town shops, which results in a mad panic and self reprobation for not being like every other responsible mother and getting organised earlier. Thank goodness for the ballet shop. Yes, they sell hair donuts and the right bobby pins. Why couldn’t someone tell me that? Oh that’s right, it was probably in one of those ten notes I got about the concert which overwhelmed me so much I couldn’t read through them all.

The makeup was so confusing I had to bring along a teenage daughter to help me. Now, I have six daughters, yes six, and none of them are really into makeup. (I know). All I know is foundation, mascara, and lipstick. Thankfully dear fifteen year old knew what to get on the shelves of K Mart.

The next test was actually putting it on miss ten year old, the ballet star. The teacher sends home a note with a picture of how they want the makeup. That’s cool. Too easy. Oh it has those wing things on the eyelids…I can do that. Of course I didn’t practice. The first makeup attempt was in the theatre seats right before the dear dancers go on stage for the dress rehearsal (which went all day mind you. Who knew!!) I tried to put my foundation on her. Nope, wrong colour. She doesn’t like that. Silver glitter eye shadow…as per the photo..oh wait, it doesn’t come with a brush? And it’s all gooey? Never mind, here, sit still, I’ll use my finger.

Feeling slightly overconfident by this point, I thought the black eye liner wings would be easy for a creative person, fun even. After putting on a nice fine lined wing I thought I’d widen it a bit, which was pretty much the wrong decision. I’ll leave you to imagine the rest.

Anyway, vulgar lipstick on, all done. ‘That looks great!’ I say reassuringly to my slightly worried dancer. Off she trots to the loo to check it out.

‘MUUUUUM!!!’ It looks terrible! She hates it. No way around it. Mum fail.

Moving onto the hair, we go outside to do the ballet bun. I swear a whole book could be written on the ballet bun.

Again, a little overconfident as the daughter of an award winning hairdresser, I wonder seriously, how hard can it be? Wrap the pony tail around the foam donut. Pin and spray. Well, I even impress myself with my wrap around of the hair. Covered the donut spectacularly and even got the pins in the right places. Oh! and I did a magnificent job with the hair net if I say so myself.

Realising we are running out of time, I grab the hair spray out of the basket with a little too much vigor and end up tossing it to the ground. I say ground, but of course we were standing right next to a grated drain and could only watch as my prized hair spray bumped along nicely down to the bottom, still within view but wayyy out of reach.

Ooops. Sorry darling. Darling is not happy and starting to get frustrated with the inexperience of her mother (who looks more like her grandmother with all of these perfectly preened spritely young ballet mums buzzing around.) Never mind, let’s go. I usher her along, looking at the pristine slicked back hair of all the other dancers, some even with that nice spray glitter shimmering all over their preened heads. We couldn’t find hair glitter. All sold out. I thought about using my expensive edible glitter. Nah.

We made it through the rehearsal. And a full weekend of concerts the following week. Darling dancer flatly refused to let me anywhere near her face for the concert. And apparently the bun was lumpy.

But WOW! can she dance! She was a triumph.

ANYWAY. How cute are these adorable vintage Christmas cookies!!? I am soo in love with them. Those sweet vintage images bring back all the nostalgia of christmases gone by. And yes, they are absolutely 100% edible.

The good news is that they will be on sale at the Lennox Community Market next weekend. Sunday 11th December. Stock will be limited, so get in early to grab yourself a treat.

My gingerbread and caramel cupcakes will also be on the market menu. It’s going to be a Christmas feast with my delicious Rafaello Almond Coconut Cupcakes and I might even branch out to include oh so Christmasey Red Velvet cupcakes.

Ho Ho Ho.