Christmas!

It's been a quiet Christmas, but nice, so far. I drove down to Deepest Devon on Monday evening - which was an interesting experience - it was very wild, wet and windy, and there were places where there was an awful lot of surface water and huge puddles and streams on the roads.

Tree

Fortunately it seemed to get better rather than worse as my journey progressed, and by the time I arrived ( with the journey having taken about 40 minutes longer than usual) it had stopped raining (temporarily!)

Christmas Morning church 

My younger sister and her partner were at my parents for a pre-christmas visit, and we overlapped for about 24 hours - long enough to catch up, exchange gifts, and to cooperate in decorating the Christmas Tree.

Christmas Day itself was fairly quiet - we went to church to ring in the morning, and admired the church full of christmas trees, each decorated by a different group.

Ringer's tree (Or Dalek)

The ringers have a bell-shaped tree (or possibly a Dalek in deep disguise)

We got home for second breakfast to discover that the heating element from the oven had blown, but happily my Dad was able to jury-rig the oven to work, by the careful deployment of a large baking tray to turn the grill into an oven-style heating element which, combined with the use of the fan part of the defunct oven setting, allowed us not only to bake out croissants, but also to cook a full Christmas Dinner.

Which was a relief. I'm sure we would have managed, if we'd needed to, with the little cooker in the caravan, the hob, and the microwave, but it would have been more complicated!

Burning food!

As it was, we were able to eat and drink to excess in the traditional manner, and to open gifts and watch Matthew Bourne's 'Sleeping Beauty' and telephone family members.

It was a Good Day.

Boxing Day brought more socialising as my aunt and uncle, together with my cousin, her husband and son, came over for lunch - I tend only to see them 2 or 3 times a year, so it was good to catch up.

And having a 3 year old visit reminds you of the thrills of Christmas. He was just as excited about everyone else's presents as his own, with lots of jumping and "What is it What is it What is it!?!" And we all enjoyed the reading of 'Fox in Socks', which followed. (Kudos to Granny, who managed to read it aloud and without losing her self control, despite 6 other adults getting the giggles around her as she read..)