And all is festive :).
I should always function on about 5 hours sleep and barely digested dinner from the day before, it makes for a very efficient morning. I tackled the mountain of clean laundry in the playroom and tasked the kids with putting their own clean washing away (doubt it’s been done properly but as one of my most hated jobs I’m only too happy to delegate and can live with lower standards), hung some out, put another load on, baked 48 mince pies, put pizza dough on for Davies’ dinner later, spoke to Ady on the phone about the last few bits he was buying, spoke to my parents on the phone – correctly diagnosing my Mum with cystitis (since confirmed by a visit to the GP), supervised the children writing the family Christmas cards, read a book to Scarlett.
And then we had lunch ;).
We called in to the library to drop off some poinsettias for work colleagues that had been looking sad at home so I wanted to get rid of today rather than tomorrow, I picked up a couple of books and took a couple back that I knew had waiting lists (Jo Brand’s autobiography and the latest Marian Keyes that I’d finished). Then over to Elizabeth’s for a couple of hours. The kids had a slightly odd dynamic going on and spent some time playing with the next-door-but-one neighbours and their visiting cousin but snowballs were involved and a fair bit of ganging up on each other seemed to be happening. Elizabeth was dealing with some landscape gardeners chopping down some trees at the bottom of their garden and then popping out to collect their cleaner from the station so I spent quite a bit of time sitting alone in the kitchen. We left just before 5pm when Ady rang to say he was home but didn’t have his keys so was sitting outside in his car looking longingly at the house!
The children had tea and then we braced ourselves and headed to Sainsburys for our festive food shopping. We’re going to my parents for Christmas dinner so only really needed nice nibbles and picky foods, aswell as festive drinks. That all went smoothly and we were home again by about 830pm. Davies and Scarlett went off to bed, Ady and I put the shopping away and then while he cooked dinner and had a bath I did the rest of the wrapping.
It took *ages* but finally I was done just before 11pm. I had a bath and we were eating dinner by about 11.15pm – dinner at about 9pm tomorrow will seem like afternoon tea! 😆 I wrapped the last few bits after dinner watching Songs of Praise and feeling all festive and misty eyed at carols I didn’t even remember I knew from school choir carol concerts of my childhood.
So, all ready for Christmas, and now all ready for bed – I’m working the next two mornings and suspect Friday might just be an early start too ;).