Despite my moaning, the run up to Christmas was nothing like as bad as last year, but it did seem to go on a long time; i spent the last 2 days manning the phone and email from home and organising last minute fixes for problems/lost items/wrongly sent/wrongly ordered bits and bobs. Considering we were still sending out hundreds a day right up to the weekend before, the actual number of fixes was small, it just felt a bit hectic. I had to go in on the Tuesday, having not really organised enough cover for those last 24 hours, but it was okay.
Tuesday night we collected Max from work and took all the kids to see Madagascar 2 at a nicer than average theatre near Huntingdon. Took the opportunity to mention to Max that while browsing the NCT Peterborough leaflet in the doctors that morning (not something i’ve been able to do for a long time) i noticed that not one of the local birth announcements mentioned Peterborough Mat Unit; apparently ladies who know in Pboro, all go to Hinchingbrooke. Says rather a lot i think. He looked politely non-committal about it 😉 Film was good enough, kids had fun and we all felt like the holiday had started.
Christmas Eve needed some shopping doing so we all popped back into town; Fran and Maddy had eye tests, the result being that Maddy who wants them doesn’t really need them but has been issued with some nearly plain glass ones to see if they help her cut out the “life noise” that distracts her. She is thrilled.
Fran, who resolutely DOES NOT want them is really quite short sighted (i was a bit shocked) and has to go back before she starts school; she just scraped through and the optician doesn’t want her eyes to give up just yet but she will almost certainly need them in the Autumn. She was cross. We did however try some pairs on her and found several purple pairs that looked lovely, so perhaps by the time it comes, she’ll have got over it. Feel a bit sorry for her though, given she will undoubtedly need braces in the next year too. Oh well.
Spent that afternoon and evening doing wrapping with the girls for either each of us or for sisters. They were so happy to have gifts for each other. F and M also did stockings for their favourite toys, which was rather sweet. I was touched the next day that they handed gifts to sisters before asking for ones for themselves and opened toy stockings before they opened their own. I do rather love the growing sense of Christmas being about giving that they are coming to. Max and i managed to have a row about whether i had overdone the buying, prompting me to suggest HE does it next year 🙄 but in the end we decided that actually it was all quite even and not too over the top. I didn’t think we went mad (althoguh plenty of them were fairly pricy i suppose) but at least, except for Playmobil, we avoided endless BITS. I decided this year i didn’t mind spending but i wasn’t spending on crud, cheap tat or things i would end up shouting at people to tidy up.
6 peoples presents.
Rubens Barn doll for each child, as requested.
I swear Fran’s biggest smile of the day was for a Latin book.
Amelie is thrilled with a camera.
Maddy has a sponsor a monkey kit, Fran has a Build a School sponsorship pack and Amelie and Josie got to name a star.
Josie was taken in by the 3rd hand DS Lite 🙂 and has played Mum I Did It! constantly.
Amelie got the joke when we gave her a DHL van – “I can do parcels now!!!!!”
Fran moved into AC:CF Puddley.
Josie, lover of “bits”, got a PlayMobil house that closes and carries plus a “car like ours!”
Maddy set about creating an Egyptian world complete with blue silk Nile, paper boats and temple made of white paper and boxes.
Josie.
Max did a fab job of dinner, as usual and we had a lovely Christmas Day, very peaceful and very us. I do love our Christmases; it suits us to just be together after the busy period, suits the kids to just be and we’ve amassed some lovely traditions. I love that the kids bring their stockings into our room and that we have a “one night only” twinkly tree in our room. I love that there is always one present downstairs from FC with a letter, i love that no one goes into the living room unless we are all ready. I was thinking yesterday that so many of our Christmas traditions have come from my online/become life friends. I would never have done St Nicholas without HE-Land and yet this year it felt right to abandon the Church visit in favour of talking about the truths of generosity and selfless giving and thoughtfulness as love. A couple of years ago we collected Christmas Day outfits from somewhere and this year we did Nic’s Christmas Eve pyjamas.
Boxing Day we planned to spend alone too but a sudden change of plan meant we spent it with my mum, dad, brother, sister, BIL and nieces. It was LOVELY, particularly as Josie and Rowan are now BIG MATES.
Rowan.
Ella.
Nana.
Auntie Greer.
Uncle Rich (he, me and Josie bemoaned the “huge Taylor head that doesn’t fit cracker hats” syndrome).
Grampty (he is less blurry in real life).
Professor Granny and her minions.
Josie again. 😆
I had a lovely few days with some great presents; good ds games, the posh version of Beedle the Bard, BIIIIIG box of Lush, pyjamas and books. Loved my brother giving us a LoveFilm membership too plus a fab plant from my parents (i was asked to think of something i wanted but wouldn’t get round to buying) and lots of lovely smellies.
Tomorrow we have guests arriving and i’ll have to pop into work as after Monday the unit space is shut for repairs until Friday; we’ve had quite a few orders; bizarre really.
Happy Christmas everyone, hope it was a good one.
We had a brilliant one too :o)
Love all your girls’ funky hats. Maddy looks especially classy and chic in those glasses, I am sure Fran will too.
Looks lovely :o)
M is having a brace fitted Late Jan/early Feb just in time for the start of the year in a new school! maybe they can compare photos?
xxxc
Lovely photos, glad you got a rest at last. Hannah is waiting for braces as well. Just one more tooth to come our first – we decided to wait till it came out itself, as I couldn’t face her having yet another aneasthetic.
loved seeing you!! I am going to blog later – girls are knackered, pleased to be home but very sorry it’s all over. Looking forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks xx
I think Maddy looks very like you with the glasses. We had to look in other opticians to find glasses that SB liked, as none of the seeming hundreds we loked at in the testing opticians she liked (gloss over the fact that we haven’t seen them for months …….)
One of my projects for next year is to sort out a brace for C as my research suggests if she has palate widening now she may avoid extractions later.
Just lurve the hats. Will try and hunt a similar for Miss C. Where did they come from?
C will need glasses. Currently longsighted, will gradually change to short sighted as M&I are both short sighted.
Might let M buy himself new glasses in the new year. His are very old and he got laughed at when he had to wear them at work when he had eye infection. They were meant to be for home use only and we hadn’t expected he would ever have to wear them in real life!
Does sound like a lovely Christmas. xx
Oh it does indeed sound lovely. I found myself sighing when I read that your daughter loved her Latin book. My poor daughter Tink would never like such a gift. I could only dream!
It sounds and looks like you all had a wonderful time 🙂
lovely pics and really glad that peace descended for you all after the mad rush of business 🙂
Glad you had a fun Christmas. I think Maddy looks great in her glasses!