Shopping and things

I have started Christmas shopping in earnest. I went out and got some of the things for the stocking fillers today, which doesn't sound like much but they add up - even the socks etc I love Christmas, even now that the children are grown up we still have stockings etc.

I also love the way ever family has a different way of doing Christmas, and of course every way is the only proper way to do it. We usually have baked ham and mashed potato for Christmas eve. The girls usually go out after dinner on Christmas eve because lots of their school friends who have moved away come back for the holiday, and they go out to the pub in the evening so they catch up with each other. Brian and I laze around the house instead, nibbling cheese and drinking wine. I used to go to midnight mass so I would stay up and go out at 11.00 to go to church, but it is much harder work now I am older, so I have given up that one.

Instead we head off to bed and I put the kids stockings outside their bedroom doors despite the fact that they are all still up after I go to bed. They do however ignore their stockings until the morning. In the morning I open my stocking and look at all the nice things the kids have given me. Brian and I have tea or coffee, then I will put the turkey into the oven and leave it to get on with cooking I will go to mass at 9.00 and Brian will head off to his house to get the presents for his own kids, which he will then take over to them at their mother's house.

The kids will be up when I get back from church. Well, the girls are, Adam isn't. Nic usually has been and done her horse, though last year she was working till about 11.30 (horses don't take Xmas off). Then we will have coffee and get the veg and stuff going. When we are all ready we open the Prosecco, get the smoked salmon, the thin brown bread and start the real Christmas stuff. Kate hands out the presents one at a time, and we all watch as everyone opens their own presents. We drink Prosecco, eat smoked salmon, cook veg, probably eat chocolates until dinner is ready, and then we eat it.

The we loaf, maybe walk the dog, maybe play a game, maybe watch tv.

I love it.