So that was Christmas!

And such fun it was too. Well most of it anyway.

Christmas Eve its traditional for Mum and I to go to the Christingle held in the little church hall at the end of her estate. It is usually a beautiful crib service containing the Sunday Schools attempt at a nativity with the Christingle combined and is very child orientated. Laura was going to come with us but Wayne had man flu and so she had heaps to prepare with 9 of us to feed at her house the next day. She kept phoning to say yes she would, no she couldn't, yes she would come. In the end she didn't come and I am so glad she didn't. We had forgotten that the family man Vicar had left the Parish since last Christmas and we were treated to a really boring, not at all child orientated, long service led by a lady Vicar, who really was well past retirement age. It was so disappointing after the wonderful services of the past 10 years.

Christmas day we were up bright and early, woken not by our children, now grown and flown the nest, but by the blinking cat! I'm not sure if he knew he had a stocking full of goodies, but he's not normally pesting us quite so early so who knows? Anyway Kelly and Ollie soon turned up to get us moving towards Laura and Wayne's house. Not that it did much good because just as Mum and Dad were leaving for the grand present opening, rellies in Oz phoned and held them up for an hour!.



Here is a list of all the goodies I got:

A stocking full of purple lushness from my Secret Santa Stocking swap (Thank you - I still dont know who you are, but sooo much stuff, wow!)


From Martin and Pumpkin:
An adventure game
Suffle sukara pens
Pink ipod accessory kit
Bead machine book

From Kelly: 2 of Jeromy Clarkson's books
The latest Terry Prachett hard book
A set of Aqua flo brushes

From Mum
Ice cream machine recipe book (yummy!)
Rummikub special edition

From Laura and Wayne (after 5 years of being on my list)
A 4.5 ft bubble lamp with fish

From Gra and Di 2 Oval shaped vintage sinlver and sparkly photo frames.

From Jan and Trev Body shop bath goodies

We only unwrapped the ones from each other, as Di and Graham (Waynes parents) were coming on later and we would open more pressies after lunch. Ollie and Kelly left for Jemma's and we started in on the sausage rolls, played chrissie music and chatted.

Lunch was superb. Wayne made pawn cocktails, with melon for Laura and I. Then it was full turkey roast with all the trimmings and a ton of veg, followed by Christmas pud and mince pies AND vienetta ice cream, cream , custard and milk. Ending with After Eight mints, and coffee/tea.

Then suitably stuffed, we opened more pressies. We watched TV while Wayne and his parents went off to visit Wayne's nan and brother who was suffering from the one day flu Wayne had had on Christmas Eve, and who had had to stay home in bed instead of coming to join us.

As if we hadn't eaten enough, Laura then faced us with salad, cold meats, pickle, bread rolls, sausage rolls, and a huge trifle with cream! And even when we had all eaten as much as we could Laura's fridge (a huge American one) still looked like this!

Di and Graham went home around 10.30 but we were sleeping over, so we sat up until gone one in the morning playing a hilarious game of Beetle drive!

Thank you to my family for making it a wonderful day.