just another morning here

Steve and I say on the way home every year how grateful we are to have family on both sides where we feel totally at home and comfortable, and where we enjoy everyone’s company, look forward to getting together and always have a lovely time. It was yet another year like that – again we had a fabulous time with my side of the family, between games, food, a walk around the village, gift exchange, and general chatting. Last year we didn’t quite get everyone out for a walk but this year we did (I’m sure having Meg the dog with us helped!), so took a pic in the same place – and it was a first take wonder!

Everyone liked their presents, and the girls did well for their birthdays too, although I’m not sure I should thank Mark & Heidi for the Olly Murs CD we had to endure on the way home

It was super-exciting to be able to add not one but TWO extra pieces of paper into the hat for our Not-so-secret-Santa for next year since my sister is expecting twins in the summer. They have now been named Bobbin and Charlie (by Abbie – not quite sure what she was thinking?!!?!).

We even ended up talking about going on holiday in a big house together again … who knows if/when that will happen but it is just lovely that everyone would want to – we are very blessed

When we got home we had to blow up Josiah’s inflatable dalek, and he ended up ‘sleeping with the enemy’ all night long

Boxing day started in a very lazy fashion; Steve and I watched a film in bed. The children decided, for once in their lives, to get up and ready on time and in a shock event, they were ready before us! We went over to Steve’s parents’ house for the day which was lovely – we exchanged gifts before a fabulous buffet lunch.

After lunch we played games and fell asleep in front of Elf … then picked at the food again before watching the Borrowers in the evening. Lovely and relaxed

Today we had always planned to go sales shopping – something we NEVER normally do, but I confess now, I had planned to buy presents for my family (who we are seeing tomorrow) after Christmas. Well – you get more for your money! We’d already bought a few, but found the last few successfully today. We should have our Christmas celebrations later on every year!

The children spent a bit of their Christmas money too, so they were very happy – Josiah bought the last Harry Potter film on DVD so we came home and watched that, closely followed by Senna (one of Steve’s presents). Looking forward to going over to friends’ tonight … and Steve’s off for the whole week between Christmas and New Year, so it does feel as though the holiday is stretching out nicely

Josiah went to stay at the school boarding house for the past couple of days – his Christmas treat! We spotted him at services yesterday but he hardly even looks at us really, we have to try and thump him as he processes by. He did deign to talk to us a bit when we went across to the boarding house for a buffet after the big Christmas Eve service yesterday but I think that was only because we had a present for him! It’s a bit strange on Christmas Day without him in the morning but he’s very happy being ‘in the zone’ as a chorister, and it means we don’t have to rush out of bed … we’re not committed enough to make it to the Cathedral for the first service of the day!
We opened stockings with the girls this morning, then got ready and arrived at the Cathedral in time for Mattins – met Steve’s parents there too. After the service we bundled across to the school with around 20 other chorister families for drinks and then Christmas dinner, which was fantastic.

Last time we did this it was Josiah’s first year and we felt a bit overwhelmed by the whole thing but this year we really enjoyed it. Well, the girls moaned about having to go back to evensong after lunch but they had to lump it!

Once home Josiah opened a couple of presents, the cat opened hers (!!), and we all loafed around enjoying presents, eating rubbish food, then eventually watching Dr Who.

We tried to get a family photo too, almost got a decent one but decided that the silly one was probably the best!

Anyway. The nice thing about having spent the day in the Cathedral is that we still have two family get-togethers to go, so we still have lots of festivities ahead of us

We came to the conclusion that when one’s birthday is so close to Christmas that there’s hardly any time to do any treat-type thing at the time, it doesn’t really matter if you have your birthday present a bit early. Abbie’s just done 3 days on a riding/stable management course (ie riding and about the same amount of mucking out!) as her birthday present this year. She’s had a wonderful time