On the first day of Christmas a swagman at the gate said, Have a ripper Aussie Christmas, mate!

The fun and creative activities in this book cover many curriculum areas, all of which relate to and consolidate information about Christmas Down-Under.

Australian slang unites the true blue and the dinky-di and separates the cheeky little possums from the happy little Vegemites. When we use slang, we’re connecting with the diggers in the villages of France ordering a vin blanc (‘plonk’) and the Indigenous Dharug-speakers of Sydney locating one another with a familiar cry (‘within cooee’). In this attractive and educational new pictorial guide, readers will be ably led through the world of Aussie slang by the great H.G. ‘battered sav’ Nelson.

Full of warm, witty and wise stories about parenting, A New Life Journal began as a weekly column by Australian journalist Jane Cafarella about her daughter's first year and ended up a life's work. First published in The Age newspaper from 1993 -1997, the column struck a chord with readers, many of whom wrote in response: "Your family life so often mirrors my own." It is that made the column so universally relevant and which led to it being picked up by Quality Time magazine from 1997 to 2002. Excerpts were also broadcast on the ABC Radio National program Life Matters over the years and further instalments were published on Jane's Older and Wider blog. Now, for the first time, the columns have been collated into a single edition for a new generation of readers to enjoy. Written over more than 20 years, A New Life Journal is both a parenting book and a memoir, covering everything from first words and potty training to choosing schools and finally letting go. A must-read for all new parents, step parents and blended families A New Life Journal is a funny, eloquent and compassionate record of one family s parenting journey and the universal issues that face parents across generations.