They say you can choose your friends but you cannot choose your relations.

Well I must be incredibly lucky as I have some cousins, well second cousins if you want to get picky, and we get together every so often and do lunch or dinner.  We gals all share the same Great Grandmother, Minnie Kerby.

My Nana is sitting on her mothers knee, my Great Grandmother.  This photo I have shared before, taken in 1901 when my Nana was only 9 months old and they were still mourning the death of their father/husband.  Minnie managed to keep that family of six kids together, and there wasn't any Domestic Purposes Benefit back then!!  

Hats off to her.

So back to those cousins of mine.  We were joined by Lorraine tonight (far right) who is the sister of Annette (far left)  and that is Jan on the other side of me.  We had a fabulous evening at the Good George pub where we dined on delicious food, chatted, and laughed an awful lot.  From there we decided to go and check out the Christmas Trees at the Meteor in town which is all about Compassion not Consumption.  OMG I was amazed and blown away with the talent on show, so much that I am going to share some of them with you all.

72 creations to buzz over, all made from recycled and reclaimed things.

 Annette checking out  one made of shells filled with glitter.

This is so bad that it was Brilliant!!  A rather dead cat dressed in a santa suit a top of a tree that spun around and sang.  From the OMG what were you thinking and what are you on file!!

Made by individuals, families, pre schools or groups.

I want this giant Pohutukawa moving sculpture in my garden!!

A living garden tree, one made of old badminton shuttlecocks, and Lorraine checking out the most amazingly colourful one made out of plastic lids of various sizes.

These three were all made from Books!!

 A wall of wreaths.

 My favourite three, knitted, buttons and crocheted.

 These ones were all yarn, knitted and or crocheted, seriously fabulous.

TeePee Christmas tree

seriously cool.

 So Kiwi, driftwood, shells,  Kete and Pohutukawa.

White left and right, and Jars in the middle.  My bosses wife entered the jar one and her blurb about it goes like this: 'December a time JAM packed with Christmas stuff.  Sometimes we get so flustered and find ourselves in a PICKLE. But, Christmas is so worth PRESERVING'.

 YAY for colour!!!!

A walk way of white led on to an entertaining story where you collected two stars. A couple of young men then hot glued them together and you could light a white candle in remembrance of someone passed on and place it in a table of sand. 

After voting for our favourite tree we ended up in a make shift lounge where we got a free hot drink.  I say $5 to get in was money well spent and I left feeling pretty good about us Hamiltonians, what a creative bunch we are.  I am also inspired to think outside the box when it comes to a Christmas Tree now.

 Love the Christmas lights down the main street lighting my way home.

Nothing says Christmas is near more than Ham on the bone

and Scorched Almonds!!

That was my lunch.

 

I wore this.