My family Christmas

Whilst I'm not the world's best gift giver, I do love giving gifts.

I love the shopping and the planning and the secrecy and most of all, I love the look on their face when they open the present and find something that whilst they didn't exactly ask for it, it's a great present. 

Gracie opening a present from Me from London

Thus my most favourite time of the year is Christmas.

I think my obsession with gift-giving comes from my Mum - she is an amazing Christmas shopper, putting things on lay-buy and storing gifts away all year like a squirrel.

Back in the days of receiving pocket-money, I remember at Christmas we'd get a little bit extra so we could buy gifts; off to the $2 Lauren and I would go, getting silly random things. Now that we've got real money, and a few more siblings, present buying is so much more powerful now. 

I've had some epic gift-giving failures in my times; I remember one year I got my Dad the most ridiculous nutcracker puppet thing, purely because a) I had no idea what to get and b) I thought it was hilariously funny. 

I've also had some fantastic successes - I remember going in with everyone to get Mum and Dad tickets to the Lion King - we got a random old box and wrapped it in so much sticky-tape - it was hilarious. 

Along with the buying, the act of temptation and teasing makes it so much fun. I know that there's been a present wrapped up in my Mum and Dad's lounge room for me since October this year. I also know that one of my Christmas presents is the size of my small roll-on suitcase. 

Pile of presents under the tree

No matter where I am in the world, my family and I always manage to share gifts at Christmas - when I was living in London my Mum would send over all my presents so I would have presents to open on Christmas morning, and I would take pictures of me opening them. I also would send presents home, and they would send photos back of them opening their presents from me. 

Me, London 2009

Me, Berlin 2010

Luckily this year we will all be in Melbourne at Mum and Dad's place - we're all still single and living in Australia. Us kids have made a pact that no matter how old we are, whether we're single or married or have kids or living overseas, we'll always exchange gifts between the five of us.