the lead up to Christmas

Late I know! As usual, but Christmas was fab.

We have a tradition of putting the tree up on the first weekend of December - December 1st this year happened to be a Saturday - so we were early in to the festivities this time! We didn't manage to get all our decorations up for a while though, and I didn't even bother with ceiling decorations. Just some tinsel around the doors, stairs and on the TV, stockings hung along the passage stairs and our Grotto pictures from through the years. I'm disappointed that we don't have any from 2002 or '03 but I'm trying to dig through pics we have of the children at around Christmas time instead.

Christmas was busy, but very nice. the nativity was lovely - Scarlett was a star and Frazer was a sheppard. Frazer was doing percussion so got his name in the program, which is quite hard as the speaking parts are so hard to come by at their over-subscribed school. Because Scarlett is in reception, all the children in her class have birthdays at around the same time (they have two reception intakes, so they are slit in the year until they reach year one) and because of this Scarlett had rather a few parties to attend in the lead up to Christmas!

For Christmas Eve we followed our normal tradition of meeting up at Auntie Laura's house - I've done this since we were best friends at school, and our friend Jenny is always there too. I'm trying to convince Jenny to buy my lot pyjamas for Christmas each year - because they get to open these presents (only the ones from Jenny and Laura) on Christmas Eve and it gives them something nice to wake up in on Christmas morning! She did great this year and found them quality pyjamas that all came with little matching toys! Frazer has Daleks, Scarlett has Dora and Rowan has Dinosaurs. jenny also bought the sweetest of cards - it had a 'Me to you' tatty teddy picture on, with a tree decoration attached.
Laura bought Scarlett a Barbie DVD game (you use the doll as the controller) which we have yet to try actually - oops! Frazer a car loop-the-loop toy and Rowan a 'build your own' Thomas train. Where she outdid herself though, was their 'gift tags'! Each had a boxed slab of chocolate with their names and a message iced on, and curly ribbon attaching a candy cane to each - how sweet!

At Laura's, us adult girls exchanged our gifts too. We have arranged it now that we have a stocking each, and it is up to one of us to fill them for another. This year Jenny put my stocking together, which meant that I was filling Laura's one. I put in nostalgic bits like Care Bear lip balm (pink lemonade flavour!) and glitter hair spray, along with things like makeup and LOTS of chocolate. I owe her a Lush bath bomb though, as I forgot to put it in! Jenny is a big kid and has to open all hers when she gets them - Laura and i like to save them for Christmas morning, but we open one each on the Eve. I opened a lovely little Chilli Pepper make up set.

Liam met us at Laura's after a while, after we had stuffed ourselves on Laura's mini buffet and chocolate fountain (filled with Galaxy chocolate - yum) and then we moved on to the cinema, to watch our Christmas Eve film.
~~~by the way, this is a fantastic idea, it occupies children through the evening when they would normally be completely hyped up waiting for Christmas and by the time we get home they are shattered and pass out in bed!~~~
We went to see a Disney film called Enchanted, it's not Christmassy as I prefer, but there wasn't really a festive film on that looked good. We all had fun, well, until Rowan got a bit scared of the dragon, then he at on my lap and fell asleep. Still all having fun - until he wee'd on my lap! I couldn't believe it - he was still fast, fast asleep and wouldn't rouse, so I had to shut up an put up until the end of the film. boy was I thankful that jenny had given pyjamas! At least he had something to walk home in.

Once home they all got changed and helped me to make Reindeer Food. Auntie Sarah had bought a sachet (oats with shimmer in) and since there wasn't much, we mixed it with some oatmeal, a spoonful of sugar and some hundreds and thousands. We of course took up the obligatory carrot, mug of milk and mince pie too!
We hung up the stockings in their room as usual, and as normal - but more this year - I swore that we would NOT have them in there again, it's too intense and Father Christmas has to try so hard not to wake them.

I'll leave it there for now and let you know that happened Christmas day later - hopefully!