just another morning here

And so another Christmas is over, and it was a lovely one.

On Christmas day itself we started here with stockings, which just had a few small things in them, and then went downstairs for a few more presents. The girls didn’t have much as they’d had Heelys not long ago on the understanding that they were an early Christmas present, but they were both really happy with the books and craft kits they had. Josiah stole the show with a Scalextrix set (we are benefiting greatly from Steve’s mechanic whose youngest son is Abbie’s age so his well-kept cast-offs seem to suit Joe perfectly!) which we got out and played with straight away.

Dragged ourselves away from that to go over to Steve’s parents for the day, which was lovely. Steve’s grandad now lives with them too, so he was around, and Adam, Em, Robyn and Lola were there too, so it was a full house. Now that we’ve given it to them, I must also add a picture of Russ & Marg’s christmas present, because I rather liked it

I took veg for Christmas dinner and had every intention of preparing it all, but I got caught up in a game of Cluedo and Steve’s mum did it all before I could extract myself! The children had a game each from them, and we had some chutney and wine, but our main present was tickets to the pantomime next week, so we have that still to look forward to. I don’t think I’ve ever been to the panto, so I’m very excited! We are planning to go by taxi so that we can have a few drinks as well and really enjoy ourselves! Only a few other gifts, which were either edible, drinkable, or spendable, so honestly nothing to be submitted for Tim’s annual contest!

I even had to eat my words over the crackers (my other pet hate, as they just generate mess, rubbish, and tatty toys)! We forgot to put the crackers on the table, so Steve’s mum came out with them mid afternoon, and very sarcastically I said ‘oh never mind, they’re only crappy things anyway, save them for another time’, or words to that effect. She insisted that we pull them and I had to take it all back, as she’d bought charity ones, in the style of WorldVision/Oxfam Unwrapped - so rather than a tacky plastic toy each one contained a note saying what the money would be used for, can’t remember them all now but they were fab - even with good jokes and suggestions for charades as well!

Had a delicious roast turkey, did presents in the afternoon, played with games and toys along with Robyn, and then came home before the lunchtime dose of Calpol wore off! Watched Dr Who and then the kids went to bed. Can’t remember what we did in the evening, watched more rubbish on tv - tv this year really seems appalling, even more so than usual.

Boxing day and the girls still seemed to need drugs to help them face the day. In fact by the end of the day I was beginning to hate coughs as much as I hate sniffing and hiccups, but there we go!

We left fairly early to get up to my parents’ new house (they moved in October), which is in the village where I spent my childhood, so I got all nostalgic, and am looking forward to more trips down memory lane in the future, too! So we had a guided tour of the house, hid a present or two, then sat around chatting while all my siblings and their families turned up - another full house, and another lovely roast dinner where I didn’t do anything!

After dinner came what was a moment of truth for me particularly. Back at Easter when we were all on holiday together, I suggested to everyone that we try doing Christmas presents between us a little differently. After calling me bossy rather a lot (qui, moi?), people were cautiously positive, and said they’d try it this year and see how it went. So we sat round and pulled names out of a hat, giving us each one gift to buy for another member of the group.

There were moments, throughout October and November, when most of us thought it was a bad idea, as we felt the weight of responsibility for getting the one present for that person, that it had to be a good thing, the right thing, etc., but I think everyone managed it!

Certainly it was absolutely lovely to have the time to watch each member of the family open just one present. And it was great to be able to spend a little more money on the one present you had to buy, and to really think about that person while you planned what to get. Even better was just receiving one lovely present, rather than a pile of cheap rubbish! (so this is the other reason I have nothing for Tim’s contest!). And after all those good reasons why it was great, it was also fab to have time to actually use/play with what we’d been given, because the present exchanging hadn’t taken so long.

I got a watch, Steve got a game, Anna had a HSM2 DVD + DVD game (had to laugh at my Dad who admitted he hadn’t even heard of HSM until I said she’d like it!), Abbie got a chromatography art kit, and Joe got a fab Cars & Boats electronics kit. I was particularly pleased that all the presents I’d chosen went down well, too

Anyway the real proof that it had worked was that everyone wanted to do it again next year, so we pulled names there and then, as none of us were sure if we’d all be together again between now and next Christmas - not even sure we’ll all be together next Christmas but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it!

We had a cup of tea and then left, as we had made arrangements to meet Bible College friends further up the country; Anna renewed friendship with their daughter over the summer, and they’d invited her to stay - having failed at half term we re-arranged the get-together for this week. So we met in a MacDonalds car park on the A43 between their house and Oxford, and waved Anna off for a few days.

And after that we popped in to show our car to Toni & Chris, who despite having been blog-acquaintances for a few years now I don’t think we’d ever met them properly, so that was nice. I think Steve spent longer admiring Toni’s guitars than the time spent out in the dark and cold with the car though!

Drove home from there, with Abbie’s cough getting more and more irritating, finally getting back around 11pm so it was a long day, but now we have a quiet couple of days before going away to the Isle of Wight with friends for New Year.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 27th, 2007 at 9:23 and is filed under celebrations, photos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.