Well Christmas has come and gone again! I can’t believe how
quickly it seems to come and go these days. Like last year, the day started
with Sarah waking up Ben and I at the crack of dawn, eager to open her
presents. And in no time the whole family was up and gathered in the living
room ready to open their presents.
As usual, the kids all
seemed to like their presents. Sarah was particularly excited about receiving a
new Barbie doll with lots of new accessories (including a toy car) and a
Despicable Me DVD from uncle Jim. We already had it on DVD, but it’s one of Sarah’s
favourite films and she wanted to have her own copy of it. Last year she
dressed up in a cute woodland fairy dressing up set, but it was a little
bit too small for her this year. Instead she persuaded Simon to let her wear
the pirate outfit he wore last year, which was much too big for her. But she
enjoyed wearing it, so what the heck.
This year Simon wore a combination of his knight dressing up set and a cowboy hat
his aunt Judy got him for Christmas. He looked very comical walking around as a
cowboy-knight and he gave us all a good laugh. I think that the cowboy hat was
one of his favourite presents, but he also seemed thrilled with the Avengers
toys we bought him and with a funny pair of elephant slippers bought for him by
uncle Jim. If you’ve never seen a cowboy-knight-boy walking around with giant
elephant feet you’ve never lived!
As usual, Crissy wanted mainly clothes for Christmas and
we bought her a wide selection, mainly from Cachet Kids.
She seemed to like all of the clothes but was particularly taken with a
beautiful red and black dress with red bow that Ben and I
bought her and with a lovely pair of patent leather Mary Jane shoes decorated withleather flowers that her aunt Judy
bought her. Crissy wore the dress and shoes all day, and I have to say that the
combination worked well together. 
Keith wanted mainly X-Box 360 games again. I don’t know much about the
games – Ben is the games buyer of the family. But I think that one was
something to do with assassins and one was something to do with modern warfare.
Anyway, Keith loved them, so Ben must have made a good selection. Keith didn’t
put much effort into dressing up this year – he wore an old Christmas jumper
with reindeer on the front and a funny hat that had ‘Bah Humbug!’ written on
the front.
The kids played with their presents until lunchtime, then after lunch
we all sat down and watched Elf together (a Christmas tradition). After
receiving our annual fix of Will Ferrel, the kids headed straight for the X-Box
and Wii and Ben and I headed for the kitchen to prepare Christmas dinner. As
usual, it was a lot of work, but well worth it: the whole family seemed to love
it. Then after stuffing ourselves silly, pulling a few crackers and playing a
few parlour games, the younger kids headed back to the wii and Keith went to a
friend’s house, leaving Ben and I to watch a bit of evening Christmas telly.
I do love Christmas, I can’t wait for next year!
