I thought this was perhaps the funniest of our Christmas photos, so decided to share. Before anybody calls the social services, she was drinking fizzy orange.
At the time of writing it is boxing day morning, and I’m pleased to report that we seem to have survived the main part of the mayhem. The younger children are raking through their new lego boxes in the lounge, and the eldest is listening to her new Cheryl Cole album in her room. I made the mistake of telling her she can play it as loud as she likes.
I suspect most parents will tell you the same thing about Christmas - from Christmas Eve morning through to Boxing Day morning, it’s hard work. You’re constantly on-the-go; buying food, tidying up, wrapping until 3am (yes, we really did), preparing food, cooking, eating, and in my case washing up again, and again, and again throughout Christmas Day - along with looking after family, getting drinks, and/or cleaning up while passing…
Christmas Day as a parent is weird. Seeing the children open their presents is of course the best bit. What people without children don’t realise is that younger children don’t play well on their own at all; and given the choice between playing with their siblings, or playing with you, will choose you every time (or at least that’s what happens in our house).
Example - younger children got a Playmobil stables for Christmas from their grandparents (that took 2 HOURS to build on Christmas morning). Once it was complete I found myself sat with them, leading the idiocy - making up stories about the Pirates stealing a horse, and the stable lad chasing after them on an Elephant, which of course had to sit on the pirate to stop him running away. The Queen even got involved - ordering the animal rescue guy to shoot the Pirates… a shootout ensued where they ran out of bullets and ended up throwing coffee mugs across the stables at each other. After a while I had to pack it in because I thought our youngest might wee herself from laughing too much.
Outside, the rest of the world is still very white, and very frozen. Walking out to let the chickens out this morning, the snow was hard under foot.W went out at 9am to feed our friends rabbits that we’re looking after, and came in reporting -7 centigrade according to the car.
We’re trying to keep the bird feeders topped up with water, but it keeps freezing - I put warm water out earlier, and watched it steam and turn to ice in a matter of minutes.
Anyway… today is Boxing Day, and we’re doing nothing. No visits anywhere planned, and no visitors that we know of. Time to sit back, watch rubbish TV, and start thinking about what on earth we are going to do with all the cardboard.
Happy Christmas!