When Santa got stuck up the chimney

Get ready, get steady for my next 23 days of posts having Christmas song lyrics as titles 🙂

A lazy morning of tv watching, being on laptops and me and the children making their advent garlands. These were kits with bags of chocolate buttons to melt and pour into moulds, then decorate with writing icing before putting into little silver bags numbered 1-24 then attaching with mini clothes pegs to a ribbon to hang up. The idea being you open the relevant numbered bag each day in December and eat your decorated chocolate. The kits were only £1.29 each which I thought was excellent value – and the moulds (and I guess even the bags and pegs and ribbon) can be used again too.

So we melted the chocolate and poured it into moulds and started decorating them. I helped with the melting and they did the rest. In the waiting around bits we danced to the Macarena, as you do :lol:.

Ady brought down the karaoke machine so Davies could practise for the carol concert with a microphone which naturally degenerated into noisy nonsense and then it was time to get ready for the church. Davies wore Badger uniform, Ady wore a suit and tie, I wore a skirt for the second day running and Tarly was dressed up with ribbon in her (brushed) hair and smart shirt and trousers. We had a moment of feeling overdressed when all the other Badger parents were in jeans but when all the other attendees arrived either in SJA uniform or Sunday best we were pleased we’d made the effort. It had been blowing a gale all morning but there was a brief lull in the wind and rain for the whole couple of hours we were out, starting again shortly after we got home and continuing still now. We’ve had several power surges here which have knocked the power out and tripped the fusebox and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are more to come. We’ve put torches beside all the beds just incase.

Davies went off to join the Badgers at the church and my parents and Granny arrived and came to sit with us. The church is the one which I sang carol concerts at during my senior school years being just down the road from my old school which was a C of E school and properly attached to the church. It is a lovely church, big with massively high wooden ceilings and beautiful stained glass windows and holds a good couple of hundred people – it was packed out today with all SJA people as Worthing is the county district headquarters. The six of us (me, Ady, Dad, Mum, Tarly and Granny) filled a pew and Scarlett moved all the way up and down between adults during the course of the concert. She did really well actually, enjoying most of it, particularly the Badgers bit that Davies sang in which she joined in with, word perfect all the way through. She got bored towards the end and I whispered most of the readings in her ear following them in the Bible which kept her quieter and she liked the carols of which there were many. She did proclaim, right in a quiet bit just after the reading about Jesus being born to save us all that ‘I am REEEEEEAAAAAALLLLLLY bored Mama!’ with a big heartfelt sigh which gave me the giggles. The elderly couple behind us with all their SJA medals on told her and us how wonderful she’d been at the end though, so brutal honesty aside I was proud of her. And she was very proud of Davies 🙂 And desperate to be up there singing with him next year.

Davies did great – he sat with the other Badgers for the whole couple of hour quite contentedly – he waved quickly to me when they assembled themselves at the front but otherwise was totally professional and sang loud and clear – there were 7 of them and they sang Rudolph the red nosed reindeer, When Santa got stuck up the chimney and We wish you a Merry Christmas. He carried a lantern as a prop. At the end when everyone was filing out Scarlett and I dashed over to collect him and he put his hand out on Scarlett’s arm and said ‘here Scarlett, you can have this’ and gave her the lantern. Which made me cry 🙂

Home to continue the advent garlands which are now pinned up on the lounge door looking very festive. The children had their tea and I made a snowball for myself as I was feeling festive and they had a (very weak) one each too with their dinner:

I went off to make the first batch of mince pies of the season which Scarlett came to help me with once she’d finished eating. They went off to bed, we had roast lamb and I’m ending the weekend way more tired than I started it! Just as well we have a pretty quiet week (birthday aside) lined up this week.