Our Family Christmas

As you may have guessed by my revamped blog, I love Christmas. I love everything about it.

On the run up to Christmas I enjoy going out and doing the Christmas shopping, working out what to buy for everyone, especially for Isla!

As I have said before, I am almost completely sorted for everyone. We just have to wait for a cheque to clear in the bank to do a small Amazon order (now unfortunately it will need express delivery – grrr) and collect her main present which has been ordered and is being paid for on hp over three months. It’s not that it’s particularly expensive, but we have a store card and it’s interest free for three months, so we might as well do it that way.

We’re going to get our Christmas tree soon – probably on Friday, in order to decorate it at the weekend, or on Wednesday next week. I’ll be home on Tuesday – got to stay an extra day here but it doesn’t really matter – although I expect she won’t expect to have to pay the extra day. Ah well – never mind. Such is life!

Christmas Day is just going to be the four of us this year, which will be nice. It’s not often that happens. My mum and dad will have been married 28 years (?) at Hogmanay, and out of those years I think we’ve had Grandma for Christmas for at the very least, 18 years. She’s going to my Uncle’s this year, but she can’t stay there for New Year, so she’s coming here on the 28th. He views Christmas as for family, and New Year for friends. So, rather than her seeing in the New Year on her lonesome in her flat, she’s coming here for about 10 days I think.

Christmas Eve is my favourite day of the holidays. There’s such anticipation for the next day, especially when you have children around. I’m not wholly convinced Isla still believes in Santa, but I think she likes to pretend she does, either so as not to upset me, or to ensure she still gets the presents! We always light the fire on Christmas Eve and spend the day maybe watching a family movie, doing last minute wrapping, preparing the vegetables and peeling the potatoes for the next day. Isla always gets a present to unwrap on Christmas Eve after her tea, and it’s always a new pair of pyjamas to wear for Christmas night. After she has opened the present, she goes and has a shower, puts on her new jammies and comes back through into the sitting room. Then, we always sit and watch Raymond Briggs’ The Snowman, followed by his Father Christmas. They are beautiful and really worth watching. To order, click on the photo below.
Then, as we have done in the last couple of years, we check the Santa tracker on the Internet and on Google Earth so she knows what progress he’s made (he always manages to do the Middle East quite quickly!), and then she goes to bed. Obviously it takes her ages to get to sleep, so we have to make completely sure she is before we do the stocking. That’s the most difficult part of being a parent, no matter what anyone else says – sneaking a crackling (from the wrapping paper!) stocking on to the end of the bed without waking her up! The tooth fairy is a hard one too! She forgot to take the tooth last time!

Anyway, back on topic…

We all go to bed, after the careful stocking placement! Isla’s really good, she doesn’t wake up until at least 8am on Christmas Day – she’s never been one of those kids who gets up at 5am – thank goodness! I couldn’t deal with that!

So, around 8am we wake up and Isla’s all excited to have her stocking bulging with presents – it’s the stocking that used to be mine, and it’s quite big! We all pile on my mum and dad’s bed and she opens it. There’s always a new teddy in there, and loads of other small, silly presents – and some sweeties of course!

Then, after the stocking is done and the bedroom is a complete mess we all have a shower and get dressed. Then, we have a cooked breakfast – we normally make sure we have some English sausages in, and cheddar so we can have cheese on toast. Only after breakfast is completed do we get to do the main presents under the tree. We always do Christmas and birthdays in a big way, so there are loads of presents! We start probably around 10 am, with a glass of Baileys or something typically Christmassy!

It takes ages to get through the presents! While we are doing that, the dinner is normally in the oven. It’s usually a roast of some sort – none of us like turkey so it might be chicken or guinea fowl or pork. The veggies don’t take long, because they were prepared the day before.
When the presents are done, and we’ve tidied up all the paper (we used to have a black lab who loved playing with wrapping paper – I still miss him and he’s been dead 8 years), we relax for a bit, playing with our new gadgets, making up bloody playmobil or whatever! I love watching Isla’s face when she realises that she’s got what she wanted for Christmas, or when she gets a complete surprise!

After we’ve eaten we tend to just veg out for the rest of the day watching films or TV (Dr Who is a must this year!) and making and receiving Christmas phone calls.

Boxing Day can be more relaxed than Christmas Day, but sometimes we have a party and we all drink too much and do silly things like karaoke or charades!

So, you can understand why I look forward to Christmas!