C'est ca

I am increasingly alarmed by how fast the month of December whizzes by.  It certainly does not seem like a whole month that we have had to enjoy our festive lovelies.

 

And next week I will be packing it all up again for another 11 months.  Sigh.  It is the ageing process, I am sure.  Time is flying by so fast that often time has happened before I have had the chance to live it.  I am finding more and more that I am having to calm myself down and be ready to accept the moments I am in rather than fretting about the ones which have gone by already.

Christmas has been lovely this year.  I had to work on Christmas Eve until 10pm, which was not brilliant, but I am grateful that I have until next week off, and that working bank holidays is not part of my current contract.  Christmas Day was great - we have no real 'traditions', but feel we would like to find the perfect ones for us, so every year we tweak things.  We try new stuff, in a new order, and one day Oliver will get to say to his kids 'that's how we always did Christmas in our house', and feel the love.

This year we tried out stocking opening, a breakfast of smoked salmon and scrambled egg (an idea pinched from SiL), more present opening, chilling, Mark cooking a brilliant dinner, MORE presents (kept back in the wardrobe until after lunch to prevent an overload of frenzied gift unwrapping), hot choc pudding and cream, chilling and down to my parents until teatime.  Peaks of excitement spread throughout the day worked quite well for us. 

I had a camera from Mark, which is great, because I have spent the last 12 months complaining bitterly about the one I bought for myself in November 2011 - thereby spoiling the camera he had bought for me last Christmas.  Boy did I never hear the end of that one.  Oliver sank quickly into an electronic fug of his new tablet and xbox games and Mark plugged himself into the ipod I had bought him.  Complete silence.  I fell happily into a glass of bubbly and the tawdry rag that is Heat magazine which Santa had left for me. 

Joy to the world.

My brothers and their kids were gathered at my parents house, where we were treated to surreal gems such as this:

brother 1: 'hey, brother 2, fancy going out on New Years Eve?'
brother 2: 'yeah, there's a rave on in Norway'
brother1: 'hmm, I was thinking of just going up town, not to Oslo'

amongst this twilight zone of conversation my Father made faces and noises of incredulity at my Mother as she made a bit of a hash at playing 'Pointless'.  Bit cheeky really as my Mum is pretty clever, and my Dad often has trouble even following the rules of the game.  Anyhow, the Brothers Grimm won this year and retained their title.  Their unbridled joy at this happy event can seen here:

I don't know why brother 2 decided to spend the day dressed as Clark Kent.  In fact, this look is a little understated, as he was wearing a trilby when we arrived. 

Boxing Day was lovely too, and I think that being very together for little pockets of time is a Good Thing for us.  Cooking, eating and playing together keeps us a little more bonded than usual, and it has felt good.  Today it is all spoilt by me going to Sainsburys, Mark going out to do a bit of work and Oliver having a friend round. 

In fact I feel very sulky about the whole thing.  Reality is a real fun-sucker.

And just for you, my findings during the annual gift-buying period are these translations:

'vintage'  =  overpriced
'novelty' = cheap and useless crap
'ideal stocking filler' = small, cheap and useless crap
'ideal Christmas gift' = anything but.

There it is.

That's the only Bah Humbug you'll get from me about Christmas.

This comment from my very good blog pal Mrs TT was sound wisdom:

'Christmas is a very controversial topic, I guess, and everyone is coming at it from many and varying perspectives. Not all of which will be shared.'

Indeed, and I will hold this thought for next year.