How was your Christmas?

We put our Christmas tree on Christmas eve. Did some more tidying and sorting, still so much to do. Want to reorganize the house it doesn't help that H has 16 guitars and basses plus to yukalales. How many instruments does one person need!!! Cooked Christmas dinner at H's parents, tasted great but managed to burn one of their pans gutted. Late afternoon H's sister and family called in to see everyone. Coming home I managed to break one of my Christmas presents a tagine, well the base of it bit gutted. Tried to find a replacement but not successful. Yesterday H tried to transfer data from Wii to WiiU and managed to loose it all. Overall a good Christmas. Today filling out a course application.

We had a lovely Christmas!

Kids got up at about 8am which was great, not too early, not too late and we all opened our presents together. Then we got dressed in a leisurely fashion and headed off to mum and dad's for more present opening and a lovely dinner with all the family - 16 of us in total!

I got away with sitting most of the day, although that was due to pain which hit with a vengeance meaning I spent a lot of the day in a happy, pain-killer induced bubble!!!

Would you believe we didn't turn the TV on for a single second all day - that's something I'm going to insist on every year from now on - we chatted, we played games and we all got on - no arguments, not even amongst the children.

Boxing Day was quiet too - we had H's son with us from about 11.30 and mum and dad arrived late afternoon. Food was just buffet bits - most of which only needed 10 minutes or so in the oven. I spent the morning going back and forth to the kitchen, but never felt rushed or pressured and once done, I just put it all out for everyone to pick at as and when they were hungry - it worked a treat!

We played a lot of 'Go Fish' and discovered that we needed new boardgames so this morning we've been to Argos and picked up a couple. The girls have headed off to Bluewater to do a bit of sale shopping, and we're just vegging out some more!!!!

This is my ideal Christmas - quiet, not too much fuss and lots of family time - perfect!

It was okay. Saw family, my mum had randomly invited an old school friend of mine round which was a bit odd as we just have nothing in common anymore, my H2B's family were their usual loud and vulgar selves, I was glad to be back home last night to just sit on the sofa and watch TV. Got some nice presents, nothing spectacular as everyone is budgeting for the wedding, but some cds and dvds I wanted so I'm happy. Today H2B has ventured into town to look for a shirt and tie for the wedding and I'm just at home catching up on some of the TV I've missed over the past few days. So yeah, uneventful but nice.

It's been nice here, very quiet and chilled. We drove over to h2b's parents on Xmas eve, listened to Classic FMs Christmas request show on the way, then had a very strange dinner of frozen pizza and oven chips when we got here. h2b and I would normally go to the Minster for midnight mass, but he was full of a cold so we ended up in bed by 11. Woke up around 8 Xmas morning, had cups of tea and a few presents opened with his family, then his mum & dad went to see his granddad (who is sadly housebound) and take him his Xmas lunch. Left us to bumble about having showers, and I put the meats in the oven and the prescribed times - was nice to help out, usually his dad won't let anyone else in the kitchen, but hiams mum & dad both like bland food, so I was a bit selfish and made sure I seasoned the bird well, the skin was delicious. When his parents got back we all opened some more pressies and had our christmas lunch, then h2b, his sister and I went to see his granddad and took him our presents. He was on good form, though a little tired, and we were pleasantly surprised to receive quite a generous cheque from him. Then back to his parents house, where we watched University Challenge and a Bond film while opening the last of our presents. I was very relieved that h2b liked all his gifts, and he got me a beautiful necklace from the Baltic in Newcastle - it's very unusual, heavy silver with interlinking galloping horses. hard to describe, but he's kept up his tradition of buying me excellent jewelry every Xmas. I talked to my parents and brother for about an hour on Skype just before they had their christmas dinner, which was really nice.

Boxing Day we visited his granddad again, and he and his mum watched lots of TV while I buried myself in a novel. Today we went shopping for gifts for the many babies we'll be meeting tomorrow when we go see his friends in Newcastle, and now they're all watching Zulu on TV while I do some phd-work that I've brought with me. Tomorrow we leave for the NE at about 7am, which I'm not looking forward to!

Ours was great. Hectic and exhausting after the wedding Tuesday though. Christmas Eve woke up at the hotel with a bit of a hangover and didn't get home until about 3ish. Didn't feel like Christmas Eve at all so I stayed up wrapping a few last min presents and putting up cards. Woke up Christmas day absolutely shattered so went back to sleep until 10.30am! Then swapped pressies with my husband and headed over to his sisters for the rest of the day. Was really lovely, a great lunch and then games for the evening.

Boxing Day we went over to see some of my family for lunch and more pressies then to H's mums for more food and games with everyone. Today is our first day alone since the wedding and we've spent most of it in bed catching up on TV and eating cheese and chocs! It's been a brilliant week. Got another get together with H's dad tomorrow and my mum Monday evening - it never ends!

A nice chilled time here too. My first Christmas off in 10 years so we were all a bit lost as to what to do but we got into the rhythm of chilling quite quickly. My youngest is in NZ so that was a bit strange we skyped her after church and pub, she opened her presents and we went to bed. Christmas morning we prepped all the veg as we didn't have time on Christmas Eve as I was at work, we skyped NZ again and had a lovely time with her 'family'.

We went rogue on presents this year, no lists or wishes and it was the best fun ever, we'll definitely do that again.

Boxing day was the seaside and we now have a poorly dog, he's old, got too excited and drank sea water, it looks like he has a hangover, poor boy.

Eldest left this morning and got caught up in the finsbury station fiasco but is now safely at her destination. We have spend the day cleaning and taking down the decorations....not bah humbug but it was the last admin day we have before he flies off again. The house does look lovely though

Hugs and best wishes to all those who needed them over the Christmas period.

'Twas good.

My mother was largely well behaved.

My sister was in the country which is rare but lovely so spent the day being childish with her!

:-D

Ours was lovely. The first time i think i have really accepted not being at home, but also the busiest which helped.

on Christmas eve we had dinner with a few friends from the Theatre, played some games, and generally had a laugh. A few of them have little kids so it was magical watching them get all excited about Santa coming, getting their carrots snd mince pies ready. We even signed their Thankyou notes 'Love from Santa' before we left. It really got me in the Christmas spirit.

On Christmas day I skyped home first thing (your Christmas eve), I sat by my tree, Mum, Dad, Brother and Sister in law sat by theirs and we opened the gifts we had sent each other and had a chat. Then we went down to the Open Door Christmas dinner where we volunteer. We have heaps of friends who volunter there too and about 150 members of the community turn up fof a free Christmas dinner. People go for heaps of reasons, there are a lot of elderly who would otherwise be alone, some mentally ill i know through work, some poorer families who couldnt give their kids a dinner with all the trimmings any other way. We do the meeting and greeting, serve drinks, i lead the carol singing, and help with clear up at the end. The dinner itself is always phenomenal (and we get about 2 months worth of food scraps for Poppy, and heaps of leftovers to take home). It was a roasting hot day, so we sheltered from the mid-day heat by maintaining some English tradition and watching the Morecambe and Wise christmas specials on DVD before heading of to see some more friends for drinks and a BBQ.

On Boxing Day the family skyped again (their Christmas day), this time there were 3 sets of Aunties and Uncles and 5 cousins as well as mum and dad. they had had their dinner and were playing articulate but didn't have enough people of even teams so i joined a team and played by Skype, hilarious! It was another hot one, so we went out and had a couple of hours walking in the Karangahake Gorge near home. Did a spot of visiting friends, then came home to the traditional Boxing Day leftovers tea and The Wizard of Oz!

I was up the hospital with the baby until 11pm Christmas eve which then meant I was up until 3am finishing off the hampers I made, we were then up at 7am! Luckily we went to the in-laws for dinner so we opened all our presents then went over at 11:30am, my husband came home at 6pm as he had to be up for work at 4am boxing day. The baby and I came home at 10pm. At 5:30am my in-laws came around and my FIL sat at mine with the baby asleep whilst me and the MIL hit the NEXT boxing day sale. All in all it was good and a fantastic first Christmas as a mother and wife, although I would have preferred it without the mad rush to the hospital.

I'm separating mine into two...because I'll prewarn I'm about to have a massive rant!! we had my mom and dad, brother, sis in law and tiny nephew, and OHs parents down. If I ignore the fact OHs parents were there we had a lovely few days, I cooked delicious food, my aunt and uncle came round for Xmas eve too for food and drinks, we watched some telly, had some nice pressies, I found out I'm going to be an aunty again! Went for a nice (but cold!!) Boxing Day walk, ate more delicious food, went to my aunts uncles yesterday for dinne, drinks and board games and that was fun, and today we've just chilled, tidied up, watched a film and continuing to chill before were both back at work tomorrow-boo!!

Now if I include OHs parents in all that then it was stressful and at one point his mother upset me so much I had to leave the table at Xmas dinner to calm down. They decided to come down a day earlier than we wanted, so I had to leave them to it Xmas eve whilst I prepped food and sorted stuff out but felt bad about that so kept stopping to chat to them so I didn't get everything I wanted done, and they kept asking 'aren't you done yet' well er, no, you weren't even supposed to be here so don't make me feel bad about getting stuff done. They didn't engage with anyone, my parents kept chatting to them otherwise they didn't bother, they sat in almost silence when we had evening drinks and nibbles, there were sour faces because I didn't prepare anything for lunch Xmas eve (no one was supposed to be there!) And despite me saying a few times please help yourself because there's lots of nibbles in but I've not done anything specific, they just looked grumpy n didn't. I picked up the turkey, went with OHs dad who decided it'd be quicker for him to pay cash rather than me use my card and then brought up the fact we owed him the money a few times... So why not just let me pay at the time?!

Christmas morning they stayed in the bedroom for hours while we were all up ( this is unusual btw they're normally up early enough) then sat on sofa all morning, looking grumpy again, they hadn't bought their presents with them to open, I ran ragged (happily because I like doing dinner and feeding people!) no do dinner and they sat with sour faces, OH kept trying to involve them but nothing, everyone had said thanks for dinner/how lovely if was etc apart from them, now I wasn't expecting endless praise but thanks wouldn't have gone amiss. OH pointedly asked her if she was enjoying dinner to which she muttered 'yeah s'alright'...I left the table at this point to calm myself. Later I had a mini cry at OH cus I'd worked so hard because she's moaned so much about last Christmas at her other sons where she'd ended up cooking half of it and doesn't like cooking and how awful it was. Then they sat quiet all evening, his dad took himself off to 'fix' our shower, and then they went to bed early. Boxing Day walk wasn't so bad as they did speak back to my parents walking round, then they went home that day. But by then I'd had it, I know they're a bit like this but oh my god was it so much worse!! I like his folks and can normally take these things with a pinch of salt but they came across as really rude and it just wasn't on.

OH is threatening to speak to them about it but I've said don't bother, we're up theirs in a Few days so I don't want any further awkwardness, we'll just see how it all goes! oH spoke to his bro to see if they'd said anything, thankfully they hadn't apart from how we just stayed in the house the whole time which is still a wtf thing to say, you could have gone out Xmas eve, it was Xmas day the day after, where did you want to go??! And then we bloody we'll went out Boxing Day?! It's not like they even go out either, we spend all weekend just sat in at theirs when we visit. So odd.

but yeah apart from the ranting there it was nice, and so lovely to see my nephew!!! And I'm sad to be back at work tomorrow!!!

Hope everyone else has had a decent one !!