One word? When seven would do…

Hope you all had the very merriest of merry Christmases. We had a really nice day, the kids were asleep by 7pm on Christmas Eve (possibly the last time ever in their lives!), the presents were removed from hiding places and places under the tree with snowy (well okay self raising flour!) Santa footprints leading from the fireplace to the tree, a huge indian takeaway was consumed and much alcohol drunk!

Scarlett woke back up again at about 11pm, which meant there was much hurried concealing of gifts under the tree with blankets 🙂 Mum and Dad left at 11.30pm and I took Tarly up to bed with me for a brief time while Ady rearranged the lounge and did the footprints, then he had to bring her back downstairs again as she was being really loud and lairy and was either going to wake Davies or get really shouted at by me so he sat with her ’til about 2am when she fell asleep.

Davies woke just before 7am (again probably the latest Christmas Day waking we’ll be getting for a fair few years!) and his first words from his bed shouted to me were ‘Mummy, Mummy, he’s been!’ He brought his pillowcase into our bed where he opened the bits and pieces in there and was shocked at being allowed to eat the chocolate coins so early in the morning. At 7.30am I sent Ady to fetch Scarlett up so she could join in and we all arrived downstairs at about 8am.

Davies opened the biggest box first – which was the Peter Pan Island (well the box for it, the actual thing was readymade and waiting in the playroom), which he was totally and utterly and completely delighted with 🙂 So much so he didn’t actually want to open any more pressies and just wanted to play with that – bless him 🙂

He was coerced into opening the rest and was a perfectly grateful and happy little lad, Scarlett similarly was astounded at the sheer volume of pressies all for ‘Tarly???’ and they spent about 2 hours altogether opening, exclaiming with delight, stopping to play, eating breakfast, eating chocolate and generally being lovely. They both tried some Bucks Fizz – predicatably Davies was not keen but Tarly loved it 🙂 She has been drinking Baileys (heavily diluted with milk) all week and loves it!

I finally persuaded them to get dressed and at midday my parents and Frazer arrived. More pressie exchanging ensued – Frazer’s gifts of the Dora house for Tarly and the wooden pirate ship for Davies were very well receieved! Davies and I then set his ship and Island up in his bedroom with a sea playmat so that when the twins arrived later nothing would get lost or broken. Davies spent ages up there with various adults in shifts playing with him – suffice to say he is very happy with his gifts.

Scarlett similarly loves the Dora house. It is excellent actually – very good quality and IMHO worth the money. You can get various add on bits and pieces such as furniture and character sets which we will start to collect for her on various occassions, but she is delighted with it – the Dora obsession continues…

Chris, Julie and the twins arrived just before 2pm, in time to join in with the buffet food I had been cooking on and off all morning. They stayed a couple of hours during which Davies had a bit of a moment – he complained about being hungry (although he didn’t want any of the wide variety of food offered) and didn’t quite know what to do with himself. ‘Mummy, I’m not having a very good Christmas’ 🙁 What he actually wanted was for me to stay upstairs with him playing with his pirate ship and Island but it was not really practical with a houseful of people and not really what I wanted to do either. Although he didn’t come right out and say it he just wanted everyone to go home! It was too many people in too small a house and probabably just a bit too much attention for him. I do know where he was coming from, much as I love Christmas I also love January when it is all over for another year and we can get on with our daily lives again – I feel the same about holidays really – I love the anticipation, I love being on holiday but equally by the end of it I am glad to get home, sleep in my own bed and get back to my own regular routines! I manage to cajole him out of it anyway and he was fine again later.

They were both asleep very quickly again last night and we had a pleasant enough evening with Mum and Dad watching Christmas Day telly!

Today I wanted to have a low key, at home playing with their presents kind of day. So that’s what we did. Ady played with them this morning while I sorted the playroom out a bit to fit in most of the new stuff they have got – some can stay in the lounge for a bit longer! Then Mum and Dad arrived for lunch after which Mum and I went into town while Dad and Ady minded the kids and watched football.

Only three shops were open in town – WHSmiths, Debenhams and Woolworths! We did manage to make purchases in all three though! Mum bought me a cd in Woolies and I got Davies a couple of half prices jumpers, in Smiths she bought me four books for my birthday and in Debenhams she bought herself a leather coat which was half price as her pressie from my Dad. So quite a result 🙂

Home again and Davies and I played with a couple of his pressies – a make your own window sticker kit and the Usborne Make these dinosaurs book which was nice. They have now been packed off to bed, Mum and Dad have gone home and we have just enjoyed our roast partridge dinner!

Pressies for Nic? I got the Trinny & Susanah book which I had asked for, some Lush perfume I had asked for, Tom Jones & Jools Holland cd I had asked for, loads pf liqueur chocolates, calendar and off his own back a bubble spa bath machine thingy and a facial spa kit (sauna, mud pack warmer, exfoliator etc) both of which would normally be cop out, stored in a cupboard somewhere pressies from most bloked but were actually very well thought out and I am really chuffed with. I adore my baths – the jet thing is great, if a little noisy and extreme with its jets 🙂 I have not played with the facial spa thing yet – tomorrow I plan to have a good go with that!

Ady got a DAB digital radio, which he bought himself and totally adores! I also got him various bits and pieces – socks, pants, a map reader gadget, aftershave, chocolate and so on and a really cool make your own mug kit which I got Davies to write ‘Daddy’ on and draw a little picture of Ady on – which is his favourite present 🙂

So I think that’s everything caught up over the last couple of days… tomorrow we are going for a brisk winter walk with Chris and Julie followed by lunch at their house. In the afternoon Lynda and Stuart will hopefully be arriving so we will either be seeing them tomorrow afternoon / evening or seeing them on Tuesday when they come over to Mum & Dad’s (they have more room and we’re all hostessed out!) for the day. On Wednesday Kerry (who moved to Norfolk at Halloween) and her girls are down for the week and meeting us at Rachel’s house for a catch up. So it is looking like being one of those real Christmasses where you really do catch up with family and friends and enjoy being together.

Below are various pics, hover over them to get a description if they are not self explanatory. Can’t be arsed to put them into the body of the blog, sorry 🙂

And finally thank you to Karen 😉 for the gifts! Very astute on the one for me and Ady! And to my CBR Secret Santa – thank you very much, we are planning to take it for a virgin flight and will post pics tomorrow!