All about Christmas

Christmas was a great success. We had a lovely day on Christmas day. As expected, Luke slept in on Christmas morning, just as he did on his birthday. Despite coming in to our bedroom to snuggle up with me and Steve, every single morning at 5am. He manages to sleep in on his birthday and on Christmas. Sam and Jude gently woke him at about 8.30. He opened his eyes wide and said "that was a lovely snoozums I had". How cute.



We all piled into the living room to see what Santa had brought. I love this photo of their excited little faces before discovering their presents.

As usual they weren't disappointed. Three full stockings and a pile of presents awaited them. Luke was ever so excited about his stocking when he discovered a chocolate Santa Claus poking out from the top of it. Stockings were soon emptied and various sweets and chocolates consumed. Then it was onto present opening. Santa had left Luke a large wrapped box. He was very excited about it but asked "where are the Thomas trains I asked for?" He opened the large box and discovered that inside it were lots of little presents. Santa had been shopping on Ebay or somewhere, and bought him a 2nd hand collection of Thomas the Tank Engine Trains. In all there was an assortment of 69 trains, carriages and cars, most of which were individually wrapped. These came with a train track, and various bits of stations and accessories. He has spent 3 days playing with this set and has not been bored for a single second.

Jude and Sam didn't ask for much so most of what Santa brought them were surprises. Sam had asked for the FIFA 2007 PSP game, which he did get. And Jude asked for some gameboy games, which she also got. This year Santa decided that they were mature enough to get their own TVs for their rooms. Santa must have felt that this would be appreciated, since Luke tends to hog the downstairs TV and cause too much commotion to watch anything in peace and quiet. They were very surprised with these presents.

The morning was spent opening presents and playing with them. We had our Christmas dinner at lunch time, although Luke had spent all morning eating sweets so he wasn't at all hungry. The dinner was lovely, turkey, duck and gammon, with the usual roast potatoes etc.

During the afternoon we just chilled with the kids. Played games. Auntie Jacqueline had given Luke a game that we all enjoyed. The idea was to press down the sharks teeth. Whoever made the shark bite was out. We all laughed and laughed playing that game. Jude got the grown ups version of Monopoly which we have been playing for 3 days now. We are almost at the end of the game! Steve bought me a game called Othello, which is very simple to learn, and we've all been playing that too. We still need to play Sams new Upwords. Sam also got a new Star Wars chess set which he is waiting to play with Steve.

Here are some of the photos from our Christmas day...

Every evening we have had an open fire, which makes the place feel so much more homely. Its been so nice to chill out and spend time as a family. Steve is back at work for two days, but then he will have four days off. Just in time for my birthday.



Yesterday, boxing day, we all slept in. Steve didn't get up until I woke him at 11.30 to ask if he wanted to go to my Dads house for some lunch. He did, so we tidied up, got dressed and headed to my Dad's new house, which we haven't seen yet. He put on a nice boxing day spread, and Luke entertained us all with songs and chat. Luke took some of his trains with him to entertain himself. Sam showed his Grandad some of the chords he has been learning on the guitar and then Grandad entertained us all with a few songs, including 'Grandma's Feather Bed'!


In the evening we had our friends Davy, Heather and Catherine round for some food and fun. It turned out to be a great evening. I taught Heather how to play Othello, and Steve taught Davy. Then they competed against each other. The kids all played together for hours until midnight! (Although Luke put himself to bed at 8.30pm) We roasted marshmallows on the fire, drank hot chocolates, and even put some candles on a cake for Davy who has his birthday on Christmas Day. Poor guy.

These are Davy's photos. The first one is four cute bottoms roasting marshmallows on the fire, and the second is myself on miniature accordion with Steve and Sam dancing (a sort of cross between Irish dancing and Morris dancing!) You can't say it's not entertaining coming round to ours for dinner!! Steve and Heather disappeared into the garage for a game of darts at one point and left myself and Davy heading dangerously towards various political and religious debates. However, we managed to avoid a fall out and did a bit of a film review instead. (he he).

I must say that so far this has been one of the best Christmas weeks I can remember. All started off with my surprise party. I don't want life to return to normal for a while yet :) I'm having too much fun with my gorgeous happy family.

Thanks to everyone who sent gifts to the children and ourselves, for both Christmas and my birthday. We will write our thank you letters soon.