In Which there is Much Merriment

I think I am both fortunate, and perhaps unusual, in that I get on well with my (born)family, and the various component parts of the family all get along pretty well, too. Which is good a lot of the time, but particularly at Christmas, when the idea of being gathered together near the middle of no-where with all of my immediate family is something to look forward to, and enjoy, rather than to view as an endurance test.

I was working in the morning of Christmas Eve (But happily was able to sneak out of work rather earlier than planned) so I was the last of the family to arrive, getting to my parent's house by about 2.30 after a journey which was fairly uneventful, marred only by the large and extremely startling piece of stone which was thrown up by a lorry going the other way, and which left a large and unexpected chip in my windscreen. (Hopefully to be fixed by the man from autoglass, who is due to arrive at any moment)

There was a certain amount of tree-decoration going on - mostly consisting of my mother decking the tree while 4 offspring and one partner-of-offspring offered "helpful" advice and constructive critisism. In the true spirit of Christmas she refrained from decking us too!

In our family, everyone gets a Christmas stocking (not just any children there may be lying about the place) so the evening ended with many of us sitting on the landing stuffing stockings.

On Christmas morning, my parents went off, in a public-spirited way, to ring the bells for Christmas services at 2 different churches, and the rest of us, after stockings, and a breakfast of croissants and bucks-fizz (mimosas, to you Americans) went for a short and slippery walk around the village - it was a glorious sunny morning, but cold, and the hard frosts of the past few days on top of the rain and muddiness which pre-dated the frost meant that the steep parts of the path (i.e. almost all of it) were very icy.

Somewhat to my surprise, none of us actually fell over, although we all came close at different times!

The rest of the day passed with delicious food, lots of gifts, far too much chocolate & alcohol, and several games - K & C had brought with them a perfectly fiendish game, called 'Valley of the Pharoahs' which occupied those parts of the early evening not taken up with watching the 1st part of the Dr Who Christmas Special.

Boxing day involved a visit from more relations, which natuarally meant more food, wine, conversation, chocolate and games.

Then, as members of the party began to drift away we moved on to the more lazy and laid back portion of the holiday weekend. Happily, the one really wet and horrible day came on 27th when no-one needed to go out, anyway!