So here it is, Merry Christmas

Very early start – Davies came into our room at 6am brandishing stuffed pillowcase and sat on the end of our bed opening and exclaiming over everything. I’d put in stuff like chocolate orange and chocolate coins, plasticine, colour changing rubber ducks, a slinky, a grow your own venus fly trap, some magnetic letters and so on – they both had identical contents.

Ady went downstairs to put the kettle on while I carried on laying there with my eyes closed carrying on a conversation with Davies until he snuck off to go and wake Tarly as I’d told him he wasn’t allowed downstairs to open presents until she woke up. By 630am she’d arrived, looking very dazed and confused, in our room with her pillowcase and we were all downstairs long before 7am.

As well as the piles of presents from us there were also gifts from the Thank You Neighbours (actually there were two each; one signed with love from Joyce, Jeannette and David and one from Joyce, Annette and David – this coming out with all the personalities is great for additional cards and gifts :lol:), Lucy and The Rs and Chris, Julie, Jack and Maisie. Oh and the neighbour on the other side of us too. Davies and Scarlett were model recipients, being grateful and pleased with everything they got and discovering their DSs about half way through the present mountain. Scarlett was way slower than Davies who has a rip the wrapper off everything first, look at it properly later type approach to present opening, while Tarly likes to peruse every gift fully before opening the next one. Davies was very pleased with his art stuff but the main event for him was the DS. On the advice of a friend I’d already charged them up so he was able to get playing straight away and that was pretty much how he stayed all day until late tonight when we pried it from his hands after an hour in bed 😆

Scarlett was keen to explore all her gifts more fully and we stuck the stickers on her ponies truck from Lucy, put batteries in her whizzy toothbrush so she went off to very thoroughly clean her teeth, twice! We stuck the hair on her make your own rag doll kit, looked at her new diary, put some of her glittery make up on and finally she got round to her DS. She played a bit with Purrfect Pals, choosing a kitten and naming her Scarlett, a bit with Nintendogs although we can’t seem to get past the naming bit on that but the big hit (thanks for the recommendation Em :)) is Cooking Mama, which I only got cos it was on the BOGOF deal and we’d already got the Purr Pals on that one. She was also really into the chatroom feature and spent ages writing and drawing messages on that.


We had croissants and bucks fizz for breakfast and gradually we all got dressed before heading out around midday over to my parents. Surprisingly Frazer was up and my Granny was already there. Today she picked on Ady’s weight rather than mine, Dad chose to tease Tarly rather than me and I was left pretty much alone to wallow in feeling increasingly more crap with my cold :(. I spent most of the time snuggled up to Tarly playing her DS games with her. Mum did cook a lovely lunch which everyone enjoyed with D and S eating loads before scrambling down to go and play with their DSs again. By pure fluke Mum had bought The Simpsons Movie for Ady which was the one late request from Davies that I’d not managed to get as a present, so all very pleased we now have our own copy of that. I felt very antisocial although Ady assures me I was just quiet and that was totally explainable that I was feeling (and looked like) shite so by about 6pm when I really had had enough we came home.

I was a massive relief to be back home again actually. We all watched Doctor Who together then D and S went off to bed with their DSs, Ady ran me a bath and we shared a bottle of fizz. That combination perked me right up and we had cheese and crackers followed by slabs of my Christmas cake for tea which when followed with chocolates (not just any chocolates mind, these are M&S chocolates :lol:)) from the Thank Yous really made me feel all festive and Christmassy.

Tomorrow we have a ‘just the four of us’ day planned although my Mum was making noises about joining us :shock:. One of the pressies the children got were metal detectors (on special offer in Tescos reduced from a tenner each to about £2 each way back in the summer and bought and stashed away) so we’ve said if the weather is ok we’ll take them down the beach to treasure hunt, which would be cool. I’m really pleased with the mix of the kids’ pressies – the DSs are obviously big gifts but they did contribute towards them by agreeing to flog outgrown toys on ebay which raised the money for them, judging by how captivated by them they have both been today I think they will prove to have been good investments :). Their other bits are great too – a good mix of activities, crafts and disposable things to do along with some nice stuff like Davies’ art haul (which he really needs a box for now, he has some really nice quality materials which need to be kept apart from the cheap and crappy felt tip pens in the playroom for general use) and Scarlett’s crafty bits and bobs. I was pleased last year with the balance we achieved between what we could afford, what we wanted in the house in the first place and still giving D and S that ‘WOW!’ feeling when they first see under the tree on Christmas morning. I think we did equally as well this year and we have various nice festive things to look forward to the next week or so too. 🙂