Christmas photo's!

Well I felt like my bed was made of Velcro this morning as I had to prise myself out of it.

Today I was back at work and what a busy day it was. The phone rang as soon as we got into the building (we had to wait to get into work) and from then I hardly stopped. a quick gobble of some homemade turkey soup for lunch and that was it till I was collected by LSP at the end of the day  (only 40 minutes overtime today). 

After work we had a quick sprint round John Lewis and I picked up a few bits in the sale for Christmas pressie's for next year. We are now home for the evening and I have an evening of TV with my feet up ahead of me. I may even find myself eating some more Christmas presents...

Here are some of our Christmas Highlights...

Merry Christmas.

all is quiet. I have a tired and happy spaniel laying on the sofa with me. I am sat with Dr Who on the TV. both OD and YD are reading their Kindles and SE has gone to see his Girlfriend. The dogs are curled up on the bed...

The last 24 hours have been eventfull (in a good way for a change) My low mood of late lead to me not being able to face putting up the decorations. however it is important that they are up for Christmas. So the plan was yesterday we would put up the decorations....

The day started with the car being MOT'd. (yes on Christmas eve, dont ask, long story) I was a bit grumbly at the prospect of it however, we just had to get on with it. What it did mean was that we had 3 hours to spare near an out of town shopping area. LSP and I divided this time between 3 places. Mcdonalds for a 30 minute breakfast. Then 45 minutes in Curry's and 45 minutes in Laura Ashley. After Curry's where I mentally planned my entire new kitchen (which will not happen but its nice to dream) we then checked out the pre-Christmas sale at laura Ashley. lots of mooching and then, trying on of clothes and after much searching  I found a lovely new skirt to wear to church that evening. It was bliss, having the time to shop unhurried as we had more time than we needed rather than less. for the first time in ages I felt relaxed. After the car passed it MOT (yay) we went to collect some fresh croissants and Stilton Cheese, grabbed a bite to eat for lunch then went to collect our Christmas Cake that our good friend had made for us. We sat and had tea and chatted then before i knew it it was 4pm. we headed home and I decorated the house in double quick time. 2 tree's... 3 garlands, lots of tinsel... oh and 300 baubles.....(pictures to follow) it was all done in time for us to go to church! Not without incident. Usually I take a long time to decorate the house I did not have the luxury of time. After throwing the baubles on the tree, the tree started to lean... I added balast in the form of tins of beans wrapped up in a bag to weight the back down. Again it started to list....It is now straight. how? it has a ribbon, tied to the trunk that is nailed to the wall. I will deal with the whole in the wall later!

Ok, so LSP had to drop me and SE and my older sister at church for the midnight Eucharist. (older daughter chose to spend the night with her boyfriend. when we were dropped off LSP had to go and collect YD from her Job and get to Church by 11.30. there was plenty of time....

at 11.29 I txt to ask if they were going to make it. only to receive a txt back saying on our way, you could not   make it up, we have pictures. Halfway through O' little Town of Bethlehem. LSP and YD arrived. So what was the holdup??? a flock of sheep!!! yes a flock of sheep on the road they were able to persuade them to the side of the road and call the police to assist. So they arrived and fell into church. (yes) as you walk in the church there is a steep step and LSP forgot (we were only in the church the week before). The reason why the rest of us were dropped of first was to save a pew for us all to sit in. I miscounted and got us a pew for 4 when there were 5 of us. (3 of us are not small) so was a bit of a squash and I spent more time kneeling than sitting to fit in. My older sister knelt as well, however, this was not just to save room, but as she had drank half a bottle of red and a large sherry it was a bit of self preservation. my older sister vary rarely drinks so its a bit of a shock to see her merry especially as we were going to church. The rest of the service passed without major incident. A drunken group arrived during prayer's (they thought the midnight service started at midnight) The Vicar said he was going to light the Easter Candle instead of the Christmas one and a random ex colleague  in the adjacent pew.

We went home via the sheep to check if they had gone home (they had). for some late cheese and crackers and waited ... for the children to go to bed so we could put the pressie's under the tree.

Today has been perfect.

yes really.

we rose this morning when OD arrived. an hour of opening presents before breakfast of fresh fruit and croissants, pancakes and brioche. The I disappear into the kitchen at 10 to start the cooking whilst listening to the Archer's then a very special desert island disks which was great. the family were examining their presents whilst watching finding nemo and Aladdin.

lunch was lovely. with no disaster's. (last year the christmas pudding boiled dry and we had a plastic molten mess in the bottom of a pan) roasties were great and we had plenty of lovely veggies.

After lunch...we had pudding, more cartoons and then games round the table. now sat with the soaps.  and my books, feeling great, I am relaxed and contented for the first time in ages.

I am blessed to have the family I have . my partner is amazing and our daughter's are so wonderful.

Christmas is such a special time, a chance to celebrate, both the birth of Jesus and to celebrate what we have.
This past year has been pretty poor. However we need to keep going. I am still sad that we did not have another Christmas with my Grandmother. It was not meant to be. to be here on Christmas evening with my partner and daughters is wonderful.

hope you all have had a good Christmas as well.

(this was last year, this year it is far to warm to light the fire)

Post office queue

Today, LSP and I created a Post office queue.

we are lucky in our village that we retain a post office. We went in today to send our Christmas cards and Post the packages.

How would we know that it would take 25 minutes. !!!!

 6 parcels, 8 overseas cards, and a stack of UK cards to be posted. 

(should not have taken 25 minutes) 

all the rest of the cards will be dropped off by hand. 

In the post Christmas Sales we do not need to buy any more Christmas Cards. We have enough in the box. I need to remember this when I see pretty cards. We do need Paper! we are down to the last roll. it did get tense. I did buy a roll of full price wrap this year when we went to John Lewis. I could not resist as it has bunting on it. This was lucky as we would have ran out. 

All of the presents have been tidied away, well those that have not been posted far and wide.

 (happy full snowmen) 

so after disrupting the whole village, we took oldest daughter to the shops. (although LSP and I finished our Christmas Shopping, the rest of the family have not) 

Its great the feeling of wandering around with no pressure. no need to buy, no need to queue, just to enjoy looking. 

oh and fitting in a hot chocolate and mince pie.....

I was tempted to buy for me as Kirsty Alsopp's Craft was only 12.99 and they had some lovely knitting books. however. I resisted. there is nothing in it that I cant find on the internet. 

Also this morning when I was tidying I realised how full the bookshelf is! I am going to have to treat the bookshelves like the cookbooks and will be operating a 1 in 1 out policy! so any purchases will have to be carefully considered. 

After a stroll round TKMaxx...OD still had not found what she was looking for so. 

We ventured to Matalan. I am not the biggest fan of Matalan, but did find something to make me smile...

(No I did not buy one as they did not do double's or king's) 

Well that's all the shopping, wrapping, packing, posting stress out of the way. 

December will be spent catching up with friends and sorting out the food....oh and putting up the decorations. 

The highlight of the day? (apart from spending time with the family)

Beautiful Sky!

All wrapped up.

Well, that's the Christmas Shopping done. just a couple of things to wrap and we are all sorted.

I love Christmas, a lot. however, I cannot abide all the hustle and bustle of shopping in December.
My Christmas shopping is done in the sales and we always have a present box in the house. some things we buy with people in mind and other's are just nice things that will get a home with someone at some point.

All of the cards and wrap are bought in the sales in January/February. However when we looked at all of the cards we possibly have enough for the next 2 years. !

I do go mad at Christmas. Lots of gifts, lots of decorations and good quality food.

I think our day is quite typical.

The day starts with present opening.

Then Breakfast of fresh fruit, Brioche and croissants.

I then retire to the Kitchen where I will cook for the next few hours. I love it. LSP and the children will play with their presents while I am basting, boiling and roasting.

We then sit and eat lunch. LSP and the children do the washing up and then  we watch the Queens speech.

We keep the fire lit all day and it is a very relaxed day.

Our most unusual Christmas was one we shared with a friend.

Our Christmas morning started as usual,  however at 12.00 we packed up the roast turkey, trimmings, roast veg, stuffing and veg into container's.

Packed it into the car and drove into town to a friends house, where we unpacked it all again.

We then had a shared Christmas, there were the 5 of us and the 3 of them. They made the starters and puddings and we brought the main. It went very well and included the most amazing trifle, which pleased SE as its his favourite pudding.

I am sat, listening to the Sunday service on the radio. Its the first Sunday of Advent. I am going to wrap up the last of the presents.

I hope all of your preparations are going well.

(for the regular readers of my blog. Youngest Daughter is recovering. She is still quite weak but in a lot less pain.My Big Sister is recovering and adjusting to living with gall stones and is adjusting to the change in her diet. My Nan is still in Hospital, she has recovered as much as she can in hospital and now just needs to go home. There will need to be adjustments to her care package as she will need some more help at home for a while)

 

I wish it could be Christmas everyday,

Yes a strange post for the last day in January,

I love the sales and have bought many bargain's including many of our Christmas pressies for next year!

I love buying things at 75% of their original price.

Today's Bargain was a set of Spode tea spoons at 75%  off,

The only issue with them is their subject matter,

Christmas tree's.

However, I love them and will use them all year round,

I am debating as to whether to keep the box as it is so pretty,

They will go into the dining room to be used for best but not saved just for Christmas....

They are not our only Christmas items we use all year, we have portmerrion as our dinner service we use everyday  and it is a mix of, flowers, fruit, roses and holly and Ivy.

May I be the first to wish you Merry Christmas!!