christmas 2015

I love christmas and always look forward to it. it is a celebratiion of family love and conviviality, warmth and light in the depth of winter. As BB pointed out, our family is getting smaller . We have lost over time Little Nanny, my sister and the FIL. Since my BIL remarried, and his new wife behaved somewhat disatrously over losing a game causing them to flounce out 2 years ago, they now don’t come (tho BIL knows there is a standing invite), meaning my nephew and niece now only come on Boxing Day. SO this year, in part due to that, and in part because I was working Xmas day, we decided to have 2 christmas eve’s and then run christmas on the 26th .

so it was lovely welcoming my mum and dad on the weds. I insisted since I was working the thurs and fri that they werent allowed to do tidying etc, and after all the house isn’t *that* bad! and i wanted to play games, chat and drink the rhubarb and ginger gin liquer I had bought, so we did that . In the late afternoon, SB’s boyfriend came over for a couple of hours, and survived the grilling/gamesplaying/baking [he made sausage rolls] trial of fire! SB decorated the xmas cake she had made, and we generally laughed a lot! work finished early on thurs, so nice to come home, and MIL had arrived, so more games and conviviality.

friday ended up being a bit odd really. I havent had to work xmas day for a while, so it was my turn. however, a 12 hour xmas shift is rubbish, and it is made even worse when it isnt busy [though that is good really] so that for swathes of time i was just catching up with paperwork. I did get a free meal at work [woohoo!] . However, clearly when i got home all this had been too much for the family, and BB in particular was quite unhappy, dad had been moochy, and they all thought it had been weird. oh well! father christmas had visited and left fantastic things – including pens , puzzles, books, smellies and chocolate . He is certainly getting more practical as the years go by, and less edible . SB got a balloon animals kit, and clearly entertained the masses with that. the lego and puzzles got bb through a lot of the day. i felt quite guilty in the end that it hadnt been possible to delay xmas day so easily in reality. it did mean that they got to watch dr who, as i try for a no tv but carols rule however, when i returned from work, i was given loads of hugs and cuddles and we got the xmas eve spirit going ready for xmas day!

so we were back on track saturday for our xmas day of loveliness. we got up early enough, and started making inroads into the huge pile of presents under the tree! everyone seemed v happy with presents. mum and I laughed at having got each other nearly the same thing! i was v happy with all the gifts i received, and v happy that the people i bought gifts for seemed to be v happy with theirs too. before long m and e had joined us, and BIL stayed for xmas dinner, which was delicious as usual . By now the festive spirit had well and truly rejoined us. So we had a lovely christmas day, even if it was a day late! and i think lots of joy and happy memories made.

w
we carried on on the sun and mon in much the same vein. making merry, enjoying each others company. playing games, making lego etc and eating a great sufficiency of good food.