And there it was...gone!

Well, it’s over for another year; the weeks of shopping, tidying, cleaning and general panicking, all over in a blink of the eye.

I hope you all had as lovely a Christmas break as we did. Christmas Day was fairly relaxed with lunch at my sister-in-law’s house. Then on Boxing Day, as I predicted when I wrote about our new patio, my whole family descended on us – all except the family of my younger sister whose little boy woke up on Christmas Day with a stomach bug, poor little man. So there were nineteen of us (rather than 24 for a full contingent). Ironically, it was way too hot to use the patio (about 38C) so we all squeezed into various rooms around the house and played musical chairs between courses, so that we got to talk to different people. We took turns to sit under the air conditioner vents, too.

Most stories about Christmas gatherings seem to include references to how someone got into an argument with someone else and had to be placated. It doesn’t seem to happen with my family or P’s family either. You’d think with all those people squashed in together, there’d be some friction, but it was just a happy occasion. Maybe some people avoided being near others for the day, but I didn’t notice it. Everyone brought something to share – carefully dealing with the vegetarian, gluten-free and diabetic dietary needs of various family members, so there was plenty of food. The worst thing that happened was the bottle of wine that my brother-in-law brought, which required a corkscrew. Do you think we could find one that worked? P ended up pushing the cork into the bottle – sending a good amount over the tablecloth. I expect we’ll be given four corkscrews for Christmas next year. Obviously, we’re not big drinkers.

The kids are still playing with their presents. They got enough ‘crafty’ things to keep them going for quite a while, I think. The ‘i-pod dock’ that I hinted that I’d like, turned into a 3-speaker sound system, which – if I turn it up to full-bore and flip the turbo switch – will probably be heard in the next shire. It does have an i-pod dock, but it’s slightly bigger and more sophisticated than I was anticipating. I’ll really be able to party while I’m making dinner!

Now it’s time to get back to writing. I’ve no excuse now.